Texas Power Outage Preparedness
The Texas edition of 90 Days Without Power by Robert Smythe adds ERCOT, ice, heat, and hurricane edition to the national household plan. Use official Texas emergency information together with Ready.gov, CDC, EPA, and USDA baselines for water, food, heat and cold, and carbon monoxide.
Who to listen to in Texas
Texas Division of Emergency Management (TDEM) is the state emergency-management agency named in this edition. The public information network listed in the book is TexasReady.gov. For local help lines, Dial 2-1-1 or visit 211texas.org for local help, including disaster-related referrals.
Open the 2-1-1 page listed for Texas
Climate and risk notes
Texas spans Gulf humidity and hurricanes, Hill Country flash floods, High Plains ice and wind, West Texas desert heat, and a long, harsh summer almost everywhere people live. A household in Houston does not have the same first risk as a household in Amarillo or El Paso.
Hurricane season and extreme heat both matter. If you live along the Gulf, pair your blackout kit with your official evacuation and flood plan; this book is a stay-in-place household guide, not a substitute for a leave-early flood plan.
Risks this edition emphasizes
- Winter freezes that ice generation, freeze wellheads and instruments, and burst household pipes (Winter Storm Uri, February 2021).
- Extreme summer heat and high humidity along the coast.
- Hurricanes and tropical storms on the Gulf Coast, with wind, storm surge, and inland flooding.
- Tornadoes and severe thunderstorms.
- River and urban flash flooding far from the coast.
Documented outages and official reviews cited in the book
- Winter Storm Uri (February 2021): the FERC/NERC joint inquiry reported that more than 4.5 million Texans lost power, some for as long as four days, and that ERCOT ordered about 20,000 MW of firm load shed. The Texas Department of State Health Services later attributed 246 deaths to the event, including 158 from hypothermia, 19 from carbon monoxide, 25 from exacerbation of pre-existing illness, 22 from motor-vehicle crashes, 10 from fire, and 9 from other trauma.
- Gulf hurricanes regularly cause multi-day coastal and inland outages. Restore times depend on wind damage and flooding; follow TDEM and your utility rather than a statewide rumor.
The grid, in plain language
Most of Texas is served by ERCOT (the Electric Reliability Council of Texas), a grid that lies largely inside Texas and is not synchronously connected to the Eastern or Western interconnections. ERCOT itself describes serving the large majority of Texas electric load. El Paso and some surrounding areas are in the Western Interconnection; parts of the Panhandle sit in the Southwest Power Pool. Know which grid and which utility actually serve your meter.
Official utility and warning links used in the edition
Water, heat, and cold in Texas
Municipal pumps and well pumps need power. Frozen pipes are a Texas-specific winter failure mode: a burst pipe during an outage can take away your water and flood the house. Coastal households should store extra water before a hurricane and assume boil-water notices after flooding.
Summer heat plus humidity is a medical risk for older adults and outdoor workers. Find official cooling centers through city or county emergency management and 211 Texas.
In a freeze, never heat with an oven or a charcoal grill. In a hurricane recovery, never run a generator in a garage, closet, or porch.
Seasonal reminders
- Winter
- Spring
- Summer
- Hurricane season (June 1–November 30)
Household priorities in this edition
- Know whether you are in ERCOT and who your retail electric provider and your wires utility are. PUC’s storm page lists utility outage maps.
- Register for STEAR if someone in the home may need extra help during a disaster.
- Have both a freeze kit (pipes, faucets, indoor warmth, CO alarms) and a heat kit.
- If you use a generator after a hurricane or a freeze, place it 20+ feet outdoors. Uri’s death count included carbon monoxide.
- Photograph and file insurance, medical, and ID documents now — floods and freezes both ruin paper.
Checklist extras for Texas
- Bookmark TDEM, TexasReady.gov, ERCOT, and your utility’s outage map
- Register for STEAR if it applies to your household
- Know your hurricane evacuation zone if you live near the coast
- Insulate outdoor faucets and know how to drip indoor taps in a freeze
- Store water and a pipe-repair kit before winter
- Test CO alarms before freeze or hurricane season
- Write separate trigger points for leaving because of heat and because of cold
- Keep fuel tanks higher than empty before a predicted ice storm or landfall (without hoarding beyond what you can store safely)
- Put Texas 211, 911, Poison Help, and Disaster Distress on paper
- Review the Uri chapter in the general guide so the 2021 numbers stay attached to their sources
Self-defense statute note (not legal advice)
The Texas edition includes this short, sourced note so readers know where to read the current law. It is not legal advice and it is not permission to use force. Statutes change; read the official text.
Texas Penal Code Chapter 9 covers justification defenses. The Texas State Law Library’s gun-law guide explains that Subchapter C addresses protection of persons, including Texas’s stand-your-ground language, and Subchapter D addresses protection of property, including castle-doctrine-type provisions. The details matter: when force or deadly force is justified, and against what kind of intrusion, is in the statute, not in a slogan. Read the current Penal Code and local rules. This book is not legal advice. Source: https://guides.sll.texas.gov/gun-laws/stand-your-ground
Related national guides: how to prepare for a 90-day blackout · water storage · home security · staying cool · staying warm