Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner wants you to know that the state is at fault for managing the electric grid and you shouldn’t blame local leaders if you have no power:
ERCOT is the traffic manager of the electric grid which reports to the State. Neither the City nor the County controls or regulates ERCOT or the power generators. That is solely the responsibility of the State. st
— Sylvester Turner (@SylvesterTurner) February 15, 2021
And he’s doing all he can to get the state to increase power generation:
I have been on the phone with #ERCOT this morning. There should be some power restoration today.
The main thing the state must do today is increase generation and restore power. That will help a lot of people.— Houston Mayor's Office (@houmayor) February 16, 2021
Well, here’s an idea. Maybe Mayor Turner should have all these big empty office buildings in downtown Houston turn off their lights at night when nobody is in them?
Here’s a look at the city skyline tonight, with many of the surrounding homes and businesses in the dark. pic.twitter.com/W5N2hfH02v
— ABC13 Houston (@abc13houston) February 16, 2021
This is happening all over the state. Here’s Dallas:
Sitting in my apartment, freezing, wo power, but it’s nice that the office buildings are doing okay #dallas #ercot #winterstorm2021 pic.twitter.com/RSQYi1ipeK
— Beverly Tenhagen (@BeverlyTenhagen) February 16, 2021
And Austin:
Live look at downtown Austin’s effort to conserve energy for the rest of the city. pic.twitter.com/SpHt9ac7UR
— Ryan Autullo (@AutulloAAS) February 16, 2021
Cities are responding to criticism and are now cutting their own power usage:
UPDATE:
I received a response from the City Manager to my inquiry regarding the lights downtown. The lights at the Alamodome and Convention Center have been turned off and they are working on turning off the Tower of the Americas.— CM Roberto C. Treviño (@Trevino_D1) February 16, 2021
With the state asking residents to cut power consumption, this never should have happened in the first place:
After backlash from millions without power in #texaspoweroutage, many downtown #Dallas buildings went dark last night. You can see the outline of The Bank of America Plaza tower, usually bright green. pic.twitter.com/rNxtis9uXN
— ed lavandera (@edlavaCNN) February 16, 2021
What an unforced error:
The booster group for the neighborhood, Downtown Dallas, Inc., said it was in the process of requesting all of the downtown buildings turn off their external lighting Monday night to help conserve power. https://t.co/wuNoLPjNxz
— FOX 4 NEWS (@FOX4) February 15, 2021
More photos:
Sigh. My parents would be in that cold dark part. https://t.co/I0BZAaQkN0
— Esther Choo MD MPH (@choo_ek) February 16, 2021
Austin skyline isn’t much better than Dallas…thousands without power but we still have our building lights on#Austin #austinenergy #dallaspoweroutage #AustinPowerOutage pic.twitter.com/CbjrBjPg2q
— Ryan (@mcnutt1414) February 16, 2021
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