Experts say widespread outages such as that caused in July by Hurricane Beryl, and in recent years by other weatherrelated events, are likely to continue in the future because the state’s massive power grid is unprepared for severe weather events, according to the Texas Tribune.
The state had 210 weatherrelated power outages from 2000 to 2023, according to data from the U.S. Department of Energy — more than any other state. In July, Beryl knocked out power to 2.6 million customers in Southeast Texas. That came on the heels of a mid-May windstorm, known as a derecho, that hit the Houston area with 100-mile-per-hour winds and knocked out power to 1 million customers.
"It's like the big, bad wolf: huff and puff and blow the house down,” said Michael Webber, an energy resources professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “And I don’t think any utility or city designs for weather like that, at least not weather that frequent.”
