Winter Storm 2021 (Houston, TX)

My birthday is February 15th. My plan was to run 34 miles on my 34th birthday, then the weather reports started coming in. This was going to be a serious storm, serious on a level Texans hadn’t seen before. We’re used to extremes, but this was different. The Texas power grid is separate from the rest of the country, so if it fails, there’s no one coming to save us. Millions of households will lose power for an extended period. Somewhat predictably, in the previous 10 years, Texas legislature had chosen to cut costs when it came to preparing the grid for extreme weather events. These days, extreme events are the norm. We’ve had three “five hundred year floods” since 2018 and record heat waves or “hottest July on record” seem to happen every other year.

I completed my run a couple days early, so I had a front row seat for the incoming freeze. Stiff breezes, freezing sweat, and it would get much worse. Five days after it arrived, the freeze finally lifted, but not before almost entirely shutting down the power grid. It had rendered entire major cities without power, and claimed a shocking number of the most vulnerable lives. There have been some important conversations around energy resiliency among private corporations and in public offices, but these devastating events will become more common as the climate continues to change.

These images are of a seemingly typical snow day, but to Houstonians who are used to winter temperatures in the 60s, they’re a shocking reminder. Parks and public spaces that are usually bathed in sunlight are frozen, blanketed with snow, the playground for kids who may have never seen snow in person.