CLASSIC: Power, Water and Texas: What happened?

Summary

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Stuff They Don't Want You To Know

“CLASSIC: Power, Water and Texas: What happened?”

Podcast: Stuff They Don’t Want You To Know
Hosts: Ben, Noel, Matt
Episode Date: August 4, 2026 (Classic episode originally recorded in 2021)
Main Theme:
A deep dive into the 2021 Texas winter storm crisis, exploring how the state’s unique energy infrastructure, regulatory choices, and weather unpreparedness led to catastrophic power and water failures, and what the fallout means for Texas’s future.

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Episode Overview

The hosts revisit the infamous February 2021 Texas winter storm—when statewide power and water failures left millions stranded and vulnerable. They explore the history of Texas’s independent grid, how deregulation and anti-federal attitudes made the system brittle, and what happened when a “perfect storm” exposed fatal weaknesses. Through stories, insider perspectives, and analysis, they show how infrastructure—often overlooked—can become the stage for conspiracy, corruption, and catastrophe.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Talk about Infrastructure?

• Infrastructure is “the sleeping giant of conspiracy, corruption, and problems”—rarely noticed until it breaks.
• Ben: “Infrastructure, when it works, becomes invisible.” (06:08)
• Emergencies, from hacker attempts on city water to winter storms, expose invisible systems and their flaws.
• Infrastructure rarely wins headlines or elections but is vital to daily life and safety.

2. The Birth and Isolation of the Texas Power Grid

• Texas energy evolved from local, voluntary grids (“plants popping up”) to the massive Texas Interconnected System (TIS), then ERCOT (Energy Reliability Council of Texas).
• Texas’s vast resources (oil, gas, coal) fueled a push for energy independence and minimal outside regulation.
• By design, Texas avoids federal oversight—refusing to cross state lines with its energy grid, which would bring them under federal regulations.
  • Ben: “Their ulterior motive was to stay independent…avoid the constraints and big brotherhood and those silly regulations.” (09:55)
• Texas’s isolated grid means it’s cut off from most emergency power-sharing used in other states.

3. The Limits of Independence: Past Near-Misses

• Texas’s autonomy has been tested: temporary grid links in WWII, an “illegal” 1976 interconnection with Oklahoma (the “Midnight Connection”), and reliance on Mexico during 2011.
• Despite limited emergency ties, Texas remains largely unconnected and unregulated compared to other states.

4. Enter ERCOT: The Agency at the Center

• Formed after a 1965 blackout, ERCOT oversees 90% of Texas’s grid, still avoiding federal rules.
• Noel: “Not as bad as ergot poisoning, and probably not as fun to visit as EPCOT.” (14:00)
• Recent years see claims of ERCOT and its regulators being “toothless”—lacking effective oversight.

5. The 2021 Crisis: The Storms No One Was Ready For

• Back-to-back winter storms hit in February 2021, breaking 70-year cold records (e.g., Dallas/Fort Worth hit -2°F/-19°C).
• Record low temps spanned all 254 counties.
• Demand for power surged; supply crashed as frozen infrastructure forced plants offline.
  • Ben: “Power plants…were also affected by the storm. And one by one, they started going dark when the people needed them the most.” (21:27)
• Over 4.3 million homes and businesses lost power; at least 47 people died (cold, carbon monoxide poisoning, fires, car accidents).

6. Why Texas Failed: Lack of Winterization

• Unlike federally-regulated states, Texas didn’t require “winterizing” power equipment—weatherproofing against rare freezes seen as unnecessary expense.
  • Ben: “Why bother preparing for blizzards when subfreezing temps are so infrequent?” (30:20)
  • Past failures didn’t lead to reform: “They also didn’t learn from past occurrences…not that long ago.” (32:45)
• “Boring” investments in safety are often deprioritized in competitive, deregulated markets.
• When the storm hit, every generation method (gas, wind, coal, nuclear) saw failures—contrary to narratives blaming renewable “big wind.”

7. Personal Experiences & Social Fallout

• Listeners and hosts’ families in Texas share stories of survival: days-long blackouts, storing food outside, using gas stoves for heat, and water shortages from frozen pipes and failing treatment plants.
  • Matt: “The big problem…was the water and gaining access to water during all of this stuff…” (35:00)
• Power access did not favor rich neighborhoods, but was somewhat better near critical services.
• Striking images: frozen ceiling fans, burst pipes, people burning furniture for warmth.

8. Rolling Blackouts & The Corruption Angle

• As plants failed, ERCOT ordered rolling blackouts to avoid total grid collapse, but these lasted far longer than promised.
• The process, while necessary, is “vulnerable to corruption…some phone calls from powerful people asking for little favors.” (42:22)
• Accusations of preferential treatment for wealthy or powerful, though evidence suggests proximity to hospitals/fire stations may be more significant.

9. Price Gouging & the Variable Rate Catastrophe

• Those who kept power faced astronomical bills due to “variable rate” plans—prices jumped from $50 to $9,000 per megawatt hour.
  • Ben: “A 700-square foot apartment at 60 degrees…power bill: $1,000.” (47:17)
  • “My power bill is usually $150…this month it's $3,000.” (48:04)
  • “One bill: $10,000 for a home.”
• Beyond energy: hotels, bottled water, and food prices were gouged. Stories of communities paying by honor system in closed stores.

10. Political (and Comedic) Fallout: Ted Cruz and Public Perception

• National attention struck when Senator Ted Cruz was photographed flying to Cancun in the crisis.
  • Changing public explanations, media mockery, and SNL lampooning followed.
  • Noel: “People only do the stuff they're supposed to do when they get caught.” (58:00)

11. The Blame Game and the Aftermath

• Lawsuits erupt: electricity retailer Gritty sued for $1 billion; further litigation and resignations from ERCOT’s board (many from out-of-state).
• Water remains a critical threat: 12 million lose potable water; rural wells freeze or become contaminated by fracking runoff.
• Attempts to blame renewable energy debunked: only ~23% of grid is renewable; natural gas failures were prime cause.

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Ben: “The mark of good infrastructure is when it becomes invisible.” (06:08)
• Noel: “We only notice this stuff or care about it when it breaks.” (06:24)
• Matt: “Infrastructure…[is] terrifying and fascinating, and still so boring.” (05:14)
• Ben: “If you use outdated weather as your roadmap, then of course you’re going to say things don’t freeze.” (31:40)
• Listener Vanessa: “We are key preppers…zero electricity—not rolling—for 84 hours. Temps in our home got to 40s. We were okay, but we had supplies. The elderly…had it very hard…Geoengineering is wacky.” (70:45)
• Food for thought: “How can we prepare for things that we can’t predict? … Should we even do that?” (66:45)
• Noel: “All these climate deniers…then stuff like this happens and they weren’t prepared because they denied it.” (65:08)
• Satire: “Big Wind, which sounds like a street name for someone who is flatulent…” (51:30)
• On leadership: “Ted Cruz…caught a lot of bad press, and rightly so, because he kept changing his explanation for the trip.” (59:06)

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Timestamps for Critical Segments

• 06:00 — Why infrastructure is culturally ‘boring’ but so vital
• 09:50 — Texas grid’s legal and historic independence
• 14:00 — ERCOT’s formation and role
• 21:00 — The 2021 winter storms hit: facts and numbers
• 27:30 — Why winterization didn’t happen in Texas
• 34:00 — Listener and personal accounts from storm survivors
• 44:00 — Rolling blackouts: rationale and controversies
• 47:00 — Variable-rate electricity bills and price spikes
• 51:30 — Debunking “Big Wind” scapegoating
• 58:00 — Ted Cruz’s Cancun trip and public response
• 62:00 — Lawsuits and ERCOT board resignations
• 65:00 — The climate change and weather unpredictability angle
• 70:30 — Anecdotes from preppers and calls for better preparation

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Takeaways & Questions Raised

• Infrastructure’s reliability is a “conspiracy of silence”—no one notices or rewards its success until catastrophic failure.
• Deregulation and independence cuts both ways: freedom from big government comes at the cost of resilience and accountability.
• The storm was not just an act of nature, but the culmination of deliberate policy choices, profit motives, and political culture.
• Conspiracies and corruption aren’t always about shadowy figures, but about ordinary, unglamorous failures—like not readying valves for a cold snap.
• In a crisis, price gouging, inequality, and blame games sprout quickly.
• The event raises urgent questions about climate unpredictability, the need (and cost) of resilience, and who should be responsible for public safety.

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Final Reflections

The episode concludes with questions instead of answers:

• How much preparedness is enough for “unpredictable” disasters?
• Should federal regulation override local autonomy for public safety’s sake?
• Can/should companies or individuals bear the full burden of “what if” scenarios?
• Is blaming “Big Wind” or specific politicians missing the point?

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For Listeners:
Whether you lived through the storm or not, the episode encourages vigilance and skepticism—not just toward conspiracy theories, but toward the hidden systems we rely on every day. The question: will Texas (and the rest of us) prepare for the next metaphorical winter—or continue gambling with infrastructure until the next disaster strikes?

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Contact the hosts:

• Twitter/Facebook: @conspiracystuff
• Instagram: @conspiracystuffshow
• Email: [e-mail]
• Voicemail: 1-833-STD-WYTK

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Stuff They Don’t Want You To Know: Knowledge is preparedness. Let’s not wait for the next disaster to ask who’s to blame.

Transcript

[Ben]

Fellow conspiracy realists, we're returning with a classic episode. Cast your mind back to 2021. So long ago now. Right, guys? Good lord. Yeah. It's a story that takes us to an event that captured national attention. As winter storms swept through Texas, the people of Texas very quickly found themselves without electricity or clean water. Millions.

[Noel]

Wasn't this the one where Ted Cruz kind of effed off to vacation town when all this was going on very same? I think so.

[Matt]

Oh, okay, now it's ringing bells.

[Noel]

Yes.

[Fred Armisen]

Sorry.

[Noel]

He was a senator at the time, but, yeah, that's what's ringing a bell. He went to Cancun, dude.

[Matt]

This was the whole ERCOT thing. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas.

[Noel]

That's right.

[Ben]

And we are airing this because, although it is a discrete instance that years ago now, we know that winter is coming. Not to be all Game of Thrones about it. And our question is, will Texas be prepared for this winter?

[Matt]

Ooh. Especially as those data centers start making their way into the big state.

[Noel]

Let's jump right in.

[Ben]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human fellow conspiracy realist. It's time to talk about your secret late night Internet searches.

[Noel]

I'm guilty of them for sure. Some of these specifically, you know, like bumpy leg rash, hair loss, itchy butt.

[Matt]

Trying to figure out your body by endlessly searching for answers. We all do it, and it never works.

[Ben]

Thankfully, there's good news. That good news is Amazon Health AI.

[Noel]

Right? It can connect your symptoms with your medical history and can even give you on the spot care 24.

[Fred Armisen]

7.

[Matt]

So call off the search. Amazon Health AI is here.

[Ben]

Healthcare just got less painful.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Hey, Portlandia fans, Kerry Brownstein and Fred Armisen here.

[Fred Armisen]

The dream of the 90s is alive in podcast form.

[Kerry Brownstein]

We're launching Podlandia AO Rewatch, our brand new podcast where we revisit every episode of Portlandia together, breaking down sketches, going deep on our iconic characters, and pulling back the curtain on how it all got made.

[Fred Armisen]

And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Krisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and many more.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Kyle is going for it. Here you fully improvised, not just words, but a song.

[Matt]

Well, I thought you were all going to write a song.

[Kerry Brownstein]

I remember you thinking that. Listen to Podlandia AO rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ari Chambers]

What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers.

[Sam J]

Hey, what's up, y'? All. It's your girl, Sam J.

[Ari Chambers]

And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I heart women's sports.

[Sam J]

We're breaking down the biggest headlines.

[Ari Chambers]

Naomi Osaka showing out shout outs to you, Naomi. The viral moments.

[Sam J]

I've been obsessed with Chrisean Rock's boxing journey.

[Matt]

She looks good.

[Sam J]

Her combos are swift.

[Ari Chambers]

And the stories everyone's talking about across

[Sam J]

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[Hayes Davenport]

Hey.

[Matt]

This is Hayes Davenport and Sean Clements.

[Hayes Davenport]

We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook. Every episode, we're trying to help our guests improve their careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers.

[Matt]

The show's famously super accessible, so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on.

[Hayes Davenport]

We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller, Danny McBride, Riz Ahmed, and Mary Steenburgen.

[Matt]

Listen to Hollywood handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ben]

From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. You turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartradio.

[Matt]

Hello. Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.

[Noel]

My name is Noel.

[Ben]

They call me Ben. We are joined, as always, with our super producer, Paul. Mission control Deccan. Most importantly, you are you. You are here. And that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. As always, this. These episodes are for all our fellow conspiracy realists out there. Today's episode is especially for our friends and family in Texas and for all your friends and family in Texas as well. This is an ongoing situation. It's kind of. It's kind of wild to say the least. We've been on an infrastructure kick lately, ever since our earlier strange news segment about that hacker in Oldsmar, Florida. You know, the one who tried to poison the city with lye. I believe it was.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Noel]

Which apparently is a thing that goes in water in some small amount. And he just upped the ante.

[Matt]

Yep. And then we talked about the brine that gets produced that may be radioactive. No, it is radioactive in making energy from fracking and other processes. Processes.

[Noel]

Who knew infrastructure could be so terrifying and fascinating and still so boring.

[Ben]

That's why. That's why it's a sleeping giant of conspiracy, corruption and problems like if you're reporting for a news site, you know that a story about infrastructure probably won't get you a ton of clicks or eyeballs. If you are running for office, railing about the danger of failing infrastructure probably isn't going to do much to help you get elected. And, and if you do fix this stuff, people will usually not bother to acknowledge or thank you for maintaining or fixing it. Not because they're being dicks, but because infrastructure, when it works, becomes invisible.

[Hayes Davenport]

Right.

[Noel]

It's sort of like when you have to buy new tires for your car or like a new battery. That's like the least sexy fun purchase ever. You just resent it because it's just supposed to work and when it doesn't, it makes you angry and then you resent having to spend the money. But then you know, it's nice when it does work, but then you forget all about it.

[Ben]

Right? Yeah. We only notice this stuff or care about it when it breaks, when the lights don't come on, when you flip the switch, when the water doesn't come out of the faucet, when you turn the knob. And then immediately we scramble for someone to blame. It is boring as hell to be prepared. But if you ask any Boy Scout or any Texan nowadays, they'll tell you being prepared can save lives. Our story today is about the ongoing winter storm crisis in Texas. Here are the facts to figure out what happened. You know, first, this storm was not restricted to Texas. It hit parts of northern Mexico. It hit huge swaths of the U.S. and the rest of the North American continent. But Texas had a unique situation due to their power grid. And there's an old story behind this, right?

[Noel]

A story that begins in Texas in the dawn of the previous century, in the years following the construction of the first US power plant by Thomas Edison in Manhattan in 1882, small plants started popping up. I get. Maybe that's where plants came from, because they're like plants popping up around different areas of the nation, including Texas. And as time went on, these utilities began to become interconnected to one another. And the phenomenon of this interconnectedness accelerated during the First World War because it was necessary.

[Matt]

Absolutely. And expansion continued more and more folks living further and further away from city centers. And guess what? In World War II, that expansion continued and the interconnectedness grew more connected, solidified. I don't know what we want to call it.

[Noel]

More connecting.

[Matt]

Yes, yes. And something else interesting happened during the World War II times here in the US specifically out Texas way utilities there in Texas began joining Together too. Ben, you've written in the outline here voltroning up. And I love that concept of all of the different plants and electrical mini grids there. Just voltroning to become one giant. What's bigger than a megawatt or kilowatt gigawatt gigawatts.

[Noel]

Or perhaps for our younger listeners, Power Rangering up, becoming a Megatron of sorts.

[Ben]

Right? Or they assembled the Avengers. Look, we spend a lot of time thinking Megazord. Was it the Megazord, Yeah. So they formed something collectively known as the Texas Interconnected System. Let's call it the TIS for the sake of brevity. And this had some tremendous advantages in the beginning, both for the businesses and for the customers. First, it allowed these. This network really allowed for the transmission of extra electricity to these factories that have massively ramped up production for the war effort. They're working around the clock. You gotta feed the machine. But second, in the longer term, it allowed these utilities to link to ginormous dams along Texas rivers. And this is where our first plot twist starts. So for a very long time, this TIS was actually a group name for two distinct entities. One in northern Texas, one in southern Texas. They were different, but they worked together because they were on the same page about pretty much everything. They had one primary ulterior motive, and it was not to provide the best service to customers. What? Right. Their ulterior motive was to stay independent from larger oversights, avoid the constraints and big brotherhood and those silly regulations that come in at the federal level, which

[Noel]

is a thing kind of at the heart of like Texas history.

[Sam J]

Right.

[Noel]

I mean, they've always kind of threatened to secede from the union or form their own, you know, mega state or whatever. It seems to be that that autonomy and that fe or resentment of big government is very much ingrained into the history of the state of Texas.

[Matt]

Oh, yeah. Remember another thing, There's a reason it's called Texas Tea Oil. That is black gold. There's a reason. It's because that's a resource that is all over the place in Texas and has been for a long time. And that meant that being independent from the other larger systems across North America was easier for Texas. Right. Because they've got so much natural energy already existing there, not just oil, too.

[Noel]

Well, also, they don't want anyone coming in and drinking up their milkshake. Right?

[Ben]

Yeah. They've got. Texas is a resource rich state in a resource rich country. They don't just have oil, they have natural gas and coal. And natural gas plays A big part in today's story. There was a really interesting study I read a number of years ago about which US states could function autonomously, like just in terms of providing resources for the people who already live there. Nothing geopolitical about it, and California's on that list, but Texas is on that list too. It's a big, big place with a lot of stuff, very climate, a ton of agriculture as well. So with all these resources already at their fingertips, the powers that be in Texas were able to fuel their power plants with in state resources. This was very important because it meant that they had encapsulated this industry all within the state lines on both ends. They were kind of think of it as like growing or harvesting their own power. And then they were also only sending it to places in Texas. That's the way they wanted it, because otherwise Uncle Sam gets involved and makes you do silly things like be prepared. Back in 1935, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was the president at the time, signed something called the Federal Power act into law. This gave an outfit called the Federal Power Commission the ability slash mandate to oversee all interstate electricity sales. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission replaced it and they currently handle all this stuff today. So what was Texas's solution to what they saw as federal overreach? Just never cross the state line. Just don't ever do it. And then we will be fine here with our Lone Star approach to energy. And the rest of you, you other 49 states, well, there weren't 50 at that point. Can continue your own song and dance. Just leave us out of it.

[Noel]

It makes me think of something Hank Hill might say. It's like, why would I ever want to leave Texas?

[Ben]

Exactly.

[Matt]

And also good luck to you, Hawaii and Alaska. Good luck getting power lines out to where you are. Ha.

[Ben]

Right. The caption says. LAUGHS IN TEXAN yeah. So Texas flirted with the idea of regulation at various points, and until the 1970s, they had virtually no regulation. In 1970, something you've probably heard a lot of in the news recently, was formed. It's the Energy Reliability Council of Texas, or ercot. Not to be confused, as we discussed earlier, with ergot poisoning or EPCOT at Disney. ERCOT is not as bad as ergot poisoning, and it is probably not as fun to visit there as it is to visit epcot. So I feel like that's a very fair way, a fair spectrum to put ERCOT off for sure.

[Matt]

Well, you definitely can't get a Belgian beer while walking around parts of ercot. I don't Think it works that way.

[Ben]

You're right, that's true. You also probably won't get spasms, diarrhea, mania, psychosis, headaches, nausea, vomiting. Desquamation.

[Matt]

Not EPCOT. That's not EPCOT.

[Ben]

That's not Epcot. That's not EPCot.

[Noel]

That's not what EPCOT's about, man.

[Ben]

Desquamation is a grisly word of the day. Its street name is skin peeling. Anyway, anyway, before I take us too far down the wrong rabbit hole, ERCOT was formed largely in reaction to a massive blackout in November of 1965, which some of our listeners may remember. When Texas went back to deregulation in the 1990s, this agency, this institution, ERCOT, assumed additional responsibilities. And the entire time they kept that old, that old goal, they stayed beyond the reach of the Feds. There were complications because the thing about these sorts of grand multi generational schemes with many moving parts is they never work out 100%. I wish people would just say that at the top of this kind of stuff, they Never work out 100%. There are always exceptions, there are always missteps, they're always plot twists. And over the years, Texas itself has breached its energy independence a couple of times, out of necessity, I would say.

[Noel]

Yep. Once it happened during World War II when special provisions were made to link Texas to other grids in time of crisis. That obviously makes sense. Glad they went along with it, but I guess they could probably have had their arms twisted as well. Then there's 1976 during an event known as very sexy event name, the Midnight Connection.

[Ben]

It's also our. That's the inspiration for our stuff there. Once, you know, R and B banned.

[Matt]

Yes.

[Noel]

Yeah. And that was when a Texas utility on purpose flipped a switch and sent power to Oklahoma just for a few hours. And this was what the feds were hoping for. And it set off a massive legal battle that could have brought Texas to their knees in terms of, you know, power autonomy under federal regulators. Ultimately, Texas did win the day and ended up staying off those larger grids.

[Matt]

And this wasn't the only event. That's one of the big ones. Right. There are several others. And Texas ended up in a bit of a have your cake and eat it too situation. I love the concept there. In 2011, the state started getting some power from Mexico during another set of issues where they were rolling blackouts where they kind of had to force some people to go without power in order to get power to the places that it needed to be.

[Noel]

Yeah, the expression, have your cake and Eat it too, is always really fascinating me. You know, it makes me think of Schrodinger's cat, we call it. It's there and not there at the same time. We should, we should start referring to that as Schrodinger's cake.

[Matt]

I like that. And we, we say it this way, having your cake and eating it, too. Because this connection to Mexico, a couple, this one connection that we just mentioned earlier, it means that Texas right now does have several power connections to Mexico, as well as to the larger energy grid in the United States. But it doesn't mean they're being regulated by the Feds. They've still got some regulation when it comes to ercot, that energy and reliability group that we're talking about here. They are kind of looked over in a way. It's kind of strange when you read some of the ways it works online, but they're kind of overseen by the Public Utility Commission of Texas. And I only say kind of because it's. It feels a little strange sometimes, at least from an outside perspective about who is actually in charge in many situations.

[Ben]

Yeah, absolutely. Because we talked a little bit about the territoriality of different stakeholders in the energy industry. The Public Utilities Commission has been accused of being toothless in the past, and that's why you see ERCOT getting

[Noel]

a

[Ben]

lot of the spotlight of infamy and controversy right now. ERCOT does have. They have three ties to Mexico, two ties to the larger eastern grid. The US Think of it in terms of three big grids for the country. They're not very creative with the names. One is the Western Interconnection, one is the Eastern Interconnection, and the other One is Texas. 90% of Texas falls under the purview of ERCOT. And as I think we mentioned earlier, the parts of Texas that were in that 10% or were in areas that hadn't fully deregulated weathered the littoral storm better than their neighbors. So all five of those links to these other grids can be used to move commercial power and they can also be used in emergencies. But to your point, Matt, they do not trigger federal oversight, which is what these organizations want. Everything was going fine now under a deregulated market, yes, many people in Texas were paying more for power than they would have in a more regulated market, but that wasn't necessarily the priority of these companies. Things start to go wrong earlier this month. In early February, the S hit the fan. And by S, we mean massively winter storms.

[Matt]

I really thought you were going to say massive winter.

[Ben]

We'll keep this part in maybe.

[Matt]

Or we could just bleep the storms.

[Noel]

Remember that line from that robot voice track on. Ok, computer. He literally says froze and went her.

[Matt]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ben]

Okay.

[Fred Armisen]

Sorry about that.

[Ben]

Let's keep this whole thing. So there was this. Because we'll need the levity in a second. There was an unprecedented. Mat. You've heard there was a massive storm. There were actually two. There was a pair of winter storms that caused record low temperatures across the state. First one hits February 10th through February 11th, and then another one February 13th to February 17th. Just for a snapshot, temperatures in Dallas Fort worth plummeted to negative 2 degrees Fahrenheit, minus 19 degrees Celsius.

[Noel]

And this is clearly like unprecedented, to be fair. Maybe is the right word. This is something that's never really happened there before.

[Ben]

Right, right.

[Noel]

Yeah.

[Ben]

This was a record that hadn't been broken for 72 years at the very least in Dallas. But. But you're. You're absolutely right. It's unprecedented for all 254 or so counties in Texas to have winter storm warnings. And then things get even worse. Just imagine it. Demand for power skyrocketed as people were trying not to freeze to death. Supply plummeted. Because, you see, the power plants were also affected by the storm. And one by one, they started going dark when the people needed them the most. As a result of this, more than 4.3 million homes and businesses in Texas alone lost power for some amount of time.

[Noel]

Yeah. And 47 that we know of. People lost their lives as a direct result of this absolute catastrophe.

[Matt]

And the causes of death here range from the actual cold itself leading to someone's death, to carbon monoxide poisoning, from people attempting to find creative ways to find heat, to get heat to their bodies and into the house, to drownings, to house fires, to hypothermia. There were automobile accidents related. With this whole thing, it's just. It's been tough. And I think. I think the way you put it as a catastrophe is. Is. It's almost too light of a word. But it's a terrible thing that has gone on.

[Noel]

It's certainly a step up from a disaster because it's like literally a perfect storm where so many things went wrong at the same time.

[Ben]

Exactly. Well put. And this leads us to our question. What happens when things go wrong? How did we get here? And perhaps most importantly, what happens next? We'll dive into this after a word from our sponsor.

[Matt]

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[Ari Chambers]

What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers.

[Sam J]

Hey, what's up, y'? All? It's your girl, Sam J.

[Ari Chambers]

And we're the host of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together. And I heart women's sports because, let's

[Sam J]

be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days.

[Ari Chambers]

So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii.

[Sam J]

My first thought is, like, what's up with the snacks? Like what?

[Ben]

What are we eating?

[Ari Chambers]

The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire

[Sam J]

timeline, and the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports.

[Ari Chambers]

Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka.

[Sam J]

Shout outs to you, Naomi, you get the Palm.

[Ari Chambers]

Naomi, you get the palm for that.

[Sam J]

Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to everyone watches women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Fred Armisen]

Hey, Portlandia fans.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Kerry Brownstein and Fred Armisen here, you

[Fred Armisen]

know us, or rather, you know them. Tony and Candace, Nina and Lance, Spike and yes, the chicken.

[Kerry Brownstein]

We've played a lot of iconic characters over the years, but today we're showing up as ourselves. To tell you about Podlandia. AO rewatch our brand new podcast.

[Fred Armisen]

Each week, we'll revisit an episode of Portlandia from the very beginning, Breaking down the sketches, exploring the backstories of our most iconic characters, revisiting the Portland locations you know and love, and opening up about our creative process.

[Kerry Brownstein]

How did any of this get made? Why do we think that was a good idea? We're ready to talk about it.

[Fred Armisen]

And we'll also be joined by the people who helped bring it all to life. Guest stars, collaborators, and friends, including director Jonathan Krisel, the mayor himself, Kyle McLaughlin, legendary musician Amy Mann, and Many more.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Kyle is going for it. Here you fully improvised, not just words, but a song about it.

[Matt]

Well, I thought he was going to write. I thought you were all going to write a song.

[Kerry Brownstein]

I remember you thinking that.

[Fred Armisen]

Listen to Podlandia AO rewatch on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Hayes Davenport]

Hey. This is Hayes Davenport and Sean Clements. We host the podcast Hollywood Handbook every episode. We're trying to help our guests improve careers by mainly focusing on how they can help us improve our careers.

[Matt]

The show is famously super accessible, so you can easily jump into any of our 650 episodes and understand what's going on.

[Hayes Davenport]

We recommend some of our recent episodes with Ben Stiller.

[Ben]

The definition of what is a movie

[Noel]

has kind of changed anyway, too, right?

[Matt]

What do you think it is now?

[Noel]

It's images and words being spoken, captured by some sort of technology.

[Hayes Davenport]

Danny McBride, he loves Boba.

[Matt]

Oh, that's fantastic. And you make it on. You make your own. That's great.

[Hayes Davenport]

I call him Tarot Reed.

[Matt]

It's a good name.

[Noel]

They're all named after cast members of American Pie.

[Hayes Davenport]

Yeah, I call. I don't. I never looked up if she was in this, but I call him Leechy Sobieski.

[Matt]

Yeah, I don't think she was an American Pie, but I still haven't looked it up.

[Hayes Davenport]

Haven't looked it up.

[Matt]

She was prominent. Yeah.

[Hayes Davenport]

Then Mary Steenbergen.

[Ben]

Why are you guys talking to me? Like, why you so down to me that you think I don't understand your little play, play game?

[Hayes Davenport]

I just really. I'm trying to set you up for success here.

[Matt]

Listen to Hollywood handbook on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ben]

Here's where it gets crazy. Corruption conspiracy. Since Texas did not have federal oversight, the various people that would be described as stakeholders in this energy game were not mandated to do things that other organizations in other states do have to do. They didn't institute certain safety measures like winterizing equipment and facilities. Winterizing is being thrown around like a buzzword, but it just means weatherproofing. You know what I mean? Like, it just means let's get maybe insulator material around various equipment and components and structures.

[Noel]

On a smaller scale, it reminds me a lot of what happened here in Atlanta several years ago with the snowpocalypse. On a much smaller scale, this was more a situation of massive inconvenience. I believe a few people maybe died in traffic situations like cars sliding off the roads and all that, but it was just they just weren't prepared, you know, for that level of icing of roads. And this is that. But on a completely fundamental level that affects so many things because again, that word interconnectedness, and we're going to get

[Matt]

to a lot of that. But one of the reasons that it is not quite the same, but it is applicable here. The situation in Atlanta during snowpocalypse is that Atlanta as a city learned from what occurred. And I don't know if you guys remember, but we've had some pretty intense snow since that time and there is now an infrastructure built up around it. And the infrastructure has been improved to the extent where the highways at least are not going to be a place where a ton of motorists get caught up for a couple days.

[Noel]

If anything, they over prep now or they like overreact, you know.

[Ben]

Oh, you know, I don't know if that'll last because we have to. We have to be very conscious folks. And we're. It's our city, so I think it's fine for us to dunk on it. We live in a city where part of the interstate will just sort of drop out of the sky. Like, remember one time the bridge on 85, just like part of it just wasn't there. And we got a really sketchy story about people starting a fire under a bridge, which is like an episode of Always Sunny.

[Fred Armisen]

Hey.

[Noel]

Also blamed it on like the homeless population smoking meth or something that ended up being a complete fabrication or at the very least a real reach.

[Matt]

I am not, I'm not speaking to this nonsense of which you are speaking. This is nonsense. And I agree. All that stuff, ridiculous. Watch my video on YouTube, which you can still find, I think on our YouTube channel of the, of the burning of a highway in Atlanta. But what I mean is a very specific thing occurred that was a major problem. And let's be honest here, a PR issue for sure for the city and steps were taken.

[Ben]

Sure, yeah. But then we also have to consider again, it's like the argument I set up at the very, very top, people. There's a great quote in literature. Maybe it was Chekhov. Someone check me on this. Check me on my Chekhov. I can't remember which author said it, but they said the mark of a good story and a good writer is when the author becomes invisible. That's the mark of good infrastructure as well as I know this might be maybe unpopular, something people don't want to hear right now. But if we look at this situation from the perspective of the companies, the Various people at every point in the energy flow of Texas in that business. We can understand their logic. They're in a tremendously competitive, even cutthroat market. So why bother preparing for blizzards when sub freezing temperatures are so infrequent? Like from their perspective, just for comparison, imagine you live in Miami. Why would you invest in a pair, why would you invest in a set of tire chains? They're probably never going to leave your garage because you'll probably never need to drive in the snow. And that's of course the same logic with Atlanta and its three snow plows. And there were even people, you know, real thrift hawks, very fiscally conservative people who were saying, why are we even wasting money on this? These snowplows are unhappy, unnecessary. It's wasteful government spending. And then it turned out that even that spending wasn't enough. But we'll see how these words taste if we have to eat them in another snowpocalypse in Atlanta. But as Michael Weber pointed out, he is an energy resources professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Their plans were flawed because their plans were based on precedent. As we said earlier, the storm is unprecedented. They were using outdated weather patterns. And if you use those outdated weather patterns, not saying there was something better available to them at the time, maybe future modeling, which is predictive but can have a wild margin of error. If you're using that outdated weather as your roadmap, then of course you're going to say things don't freeze. You know, it just, it makes sense.

[Matt]

Well, they also didn't learn from past occurrences where this very thing has happened in the. Not like not that long ago.

[Ben]

Right.

[Matt]

That we mentioned in our episode that we already, that we like mentioned this in before we talked about how it's happened several times in the past where this very thing occurred.

[Ben]

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And this, it's important to understand that perspective because also picture yourself like you're the, you're the mover and shaker, the CEO of some company in the energy industry in Texas and your business starts failing because you invested so much in winterization and people are coming to you and saying why did we waste millions and millions of dollars on this? We have to spend that money fighting for our lives as a business. Cuz there are other hungry people out there and they want to eat our electric lunch.

[Noel]

Is this a byproduct of the complete isolation of their power system having no subsidization or no assistance from Uncle Samuel?

[Ben]

Yeah, this is something that comes out of the deregulation, for sure. And at this point, I suggest that we pause for a moment, not for a word from our sponsors, but for a word from some of our fellow listeners who are in Texas and who have written to us and some of our own personal experience, which we don't always do, but we, like millions and millions of other people, do have friends and family in Texas. Matt, you just spoke with your uncle not too long ago, correct? How's he doing?

[Matt]

I guess it was a little while ago. It was last Thursday, as we're recording this, when. When they were still very much in the middle of a power outage. He lives in Houston in a suburb just to, I want to say, the southwest of Houston. And he said the power at that time had been out for two days. Then it came on for about five hours. Then it went out again. Thankfully, he and the family were able to store some food outside because it was cold enough to preserve food for an elongated amount of time at that time. And another great thing, and this is a reason to have a fully gas stove setup. He didn't need power in order to start that gas stove. You just turn the knob and then get a source of fire, like a lighter or anything else, or a match, put it over there, and you can cook anything you need to. So that was very, very good. The big problem, he said, was the water and gaining access to water during all of this stuff because of busted

[Noel]

burst pipes or just frozen.

[Ben]

There are a couple of factors. Partially burst pipes because of the freeze, right. And water expands when it freezes. And then partially because the water treatment plants also had gone offline. And that can result in lower water pressure, those two factors. And at a certain threshold of water pressure, when it goes below a certain threshold, people will be advised to boil water. But then how do you boil water if you don't have electricity? Right. You're going to have to build a fire. You're going to have to be like Matt's uncle and have a gas stove or something like that.

[Matt]

Well, and also remember, if you don't have a way to heat the water, then imagine what it's like to try, attempt to bathe or attempt to do anything that would require warmer water that is not, you know, that you're not going to boil. Then I guess mix with some cold water and pour on yourself. It becomes a big issue. Just dealt with this when our water heater went out.

[Noel]

Speaking of burst pipes and just firsthand accounts, John Oliver did a really great segment on this and showed some really shocking images of this stuff, these scenes in people's homes and businesses. And one of them was a ceiling fan literally dripping with these, like, stalag. What is it? Stalactites that go down, these ice crystals coming down off of the ceiling fan blades, which could only have been because of burst pipes and water leaking through the. The ceiling. Right?

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Noel]

And then another one of a. Of a car wash where like the, you know, the cool, foamy stuff that. That's colorful, that when you go through and everyone makes the Instagram videos of it going down their windshield. Well, one of those tanks, I guess, burst and that stuff exploded out and it's frozen. And it looks like literally like some kind of magical cave, you know, in fairyland or something, but way more terrifying and. And sinister.

[Ben]

And then you can also see heartbreaking accounts of people burning whatever was flammable in their house, like furniture and so on, to keep their kids warm. People sleeping in cars or charging their phones off their car battery. Trying to find where water is in any emergency situation, by the way, once you have found some modicum of physical safety, your very next thing, no matter what, your very next thing is to figure out where you are going to find potable water. You would be surprised how long people can survive without eating and without having permanent damage to their system from doing so. But dehydration will rock your. And you can die within four days, you know, and this. Your mileage may vary. There are people, of course, we've all seen survival stories of people who managed to stay alive, but they didn't thrive past that point. And you are very much on a ticking clock the moment you realize you can't find water. Please take it seriously. Even if you think, you know, even if you think I'm just camping somewhere and there's a clearly marked trail and I can walk half a mile to the parking lot. Just take some water with you. You know what I mean?

[Matt]

And one last thing to add here. My uncle lives in a very nice area. And on our previous episode where we were talking about this situation, it was mentioned, at least, rumors that power was being sent to very wealthy communities before it was going to be sent to anywhere else, like Diverted. Well, where there was an inequality in power distribution depending on essentially a zip code or a neighborhood or something like. I can't speak to all of those, but I can tell you I've been in my. My family's house. It is lovely. It's in a ridiculously nice area, and they still lost power just as frequently as everybody else.

[Fred Armisen]

Sure.

[Noel]

And I don't know exactly where Senator Ted Cruz lives, but his house apparently got cold enough that they decided to piss off to, what is it? Cancun.

[Ben]

Yeah, and we'll, we'll look into that a little bit later in the episode too. Before we move on, I want to thank Miles B, Nathan G, Jacob D. And a number of other people who reached out to us to give us their experience during this massive catastrophe. Jacob especially noted something that one of my relatives in Austin noted, which is that people's odds of having power did seem to be better if they were, if they were around something like emergency responder building or a hospital, something like that. Jacob, you also noted that the story from ERCOT kept changing as far as when power would be restored, how rolling blackouts would work, etc.

[Matt]

And they also said Encore was giving updates like, oh, power is going to be on in 15 minutes. Oh, your power's on. Power was not on.

[Ben]

Right, right. And there's kind of a fog of war with this too. There are so many moving parts. But here's what happened when the power outages began. Natural gas plants, utility scale, wind turbines, coal and nuclear plants, all of those started to trip, meaning they fell off the grid because they didn't have the investments necessary to keep them online during sustained low temperatures. They just couldn't function this way. Even if there wasn't a surge in demand for power, like that's an important note. Even if it had just been the storm and there had not been an increase in demand for energy, a lot of these facilities still would have failed just because they couldn't handle it. That's why ercot, that's their logic for ordering utilities to institute rolling blackouts, which are probably familiar to Enron fans in California, if there are any Enron fans left after, after their massive debacle.

[Matt]

And this is a big note that Ben mentioned here. I just want to make sure we're not going to go over it too quickly. These were all sorts of different types of energy generating plants. If no matter what you're reading online or what anybody is saying, this, this is affecting all parts of it. It's not just the green sector. It's not just coal or, you know, natural gas or whatever. It's everything across the board was being affected.

[Ben]

So the logic here is theoretically sound. ERCOT says, look, we have to kind of cut off an arm to save the body temporarily.

[Kerry Brownstein]

Right.

[Ben]

We're going to strategically reduce temporary demand through a somewhat arcane process that is very vulnerable to corruption or maybe some phone Calls from powerful people asking for little favors. Anyway, they said by reducing. Reducing demand at certain times in certain areas, they would be able to prevent the entire circus tent of Texas electricity from collapsing. And that's a rock and a hard place, honestly. If the entire grid failed, then Texans would have been out without power for weeks, even months. And it could have affected all the other pieces of infrastructure. Right, including water treatment. But that's a hard thing to square when you are in the midst of a rolling outage that was supposed to last for like a couple of hours and it lasted days at a time that happened to millions of people. We're going to pause for a word from our sponsor, and then we're going to dive into the unpleasant story of people who did keep their power for at least part of the time. Doesn't end the way you suspect. We're back. Okay, so imagine you are one of the lucky few who, through accident, fate, or design, managed to keep your power for some or all of the winter outages. You're not in a super great place because the people who did have power found that their bills skyrocketed. Skyrocketed is not the right word. Your bills launched into orbit. They space rocketed.

[Noel]

Yeah. And, you know, it follows the concept of supply and demand, but you don't typically think of that in terms of, like, things that people need to survive as that being a calculus. And yet here we are.

[Ben]

There's a little bit of inside baseball here, but here's what happened. One megawatt of what's called wholesale power went from 50 bucks to $9,000. Wholesale power is something that a business will buy, and then they will sell it or provide it to consumers. So this wouldn't affect you if you had what's called a fixed rate plan. That's a very common thing here in the US you're basically as a customer, forced to gamble with a power company. And you can make a couple of types of bets. One of the bets is saying, hey, I will pay this much per unit of power all the time, and I'll do that for 12 months. So if there's a surge in price or demand, I won't have to pay more than my, you know, 30 cents or buck 35 or whatever. But if the price goes lower than that $35, I still have to pay the $1.35. So you're kind of in a casino with a power company.

[Noel]

I always wondered. I mean, I guess it really is up to the individual. But do you see, obviously, the benefit here Was. Was alarmingly apparent. But in general, what would you recommend, Ben?

[Matt]

I'll tell you. Look, I'll give you my opinion. I've been, I've been officially paying for power now since 2000, so I've been paying a separate power bill since 2004. I have attempted the variable style once and it's the only time I had to pay ridiculous amounts of money for power and did the same thing with heating bills only once. You got me once, never will do it again.

[Noel]

I've always felt that fixed rate seemed like the safest bet. And I'm a fixed rate man myself.

[Ben]

Yeah, agreed. Again, these are our personal experiences. Your mileage may vary, but there are power monopolies here in Georgia. So you. So you are forced to deal with them and they want you to gamble. And I personally am not a big fan of gambling and I do think, you know, you could say I'd be hyperbolic or whatever by describing it as this, but it is, it is gambling. And I had an experience like you, Matt. Variable can work if you like astutely time it and you pay attention, you pay close attention. Fixed rate, it's kind of like you're just paying more for the certitude and the predictability. So fixed rate is pretty good. And I think a lot of people in Texas were on fixed rate too. So let's talk about the people who went with a variable rate. I don't know what the smallest place all of us listening today have ever lived in is, but there was one woman in Texas who had a 700 square foot apartment, pretty small. She was keeping it at 60 degrees. She didn't lose power for very long. When she got her power bill, it was $1,000.

[Noel]

Okay, is this like by design? Are they really thinking people are going to pay this? Are they really going to hold people to these absurd bills?

[Ben]

Is it supply and demand or is it price gouging? It's also.

[Noel]

Or is it an accident? Like. Yeah, I just, I don't know.

[Matt]

Well, the bill is not an accident. That's how much the energy cost when they were attempting, when they're going through this crisis, if energy was being supplied to your home, the supply and demand, baby, it's messed up. It's really messed up. But we can get into that a little more as we get to the conclusion here. But yeah, the big thing is that a lot of people dealt with something like that huge in the thousands bills that were coming due.

[Ben]

And ultimately, as we'll see, this will have to be decided in the courts, I think one guy was talking to NBC News and he said, I have a two bedroom home. My power bill is usually 125 to 150 bucks, but this month it's more than $3,000, which caught me by surprise. I am editorializing a little. Another family, one really extreme example, another family told the same team at NBC that they were able to keep the power in their home, which had three bedrooms. And then they found their bill ended up being $10,000. And the price gouging didn't stop there. It didn't stop with power bills because, remember, this is a crisis.

[Noel]

Well, yeah, and I get that, understand that this is a crisis for the energy end of it too, the provider. But again, it's, it's kind of their fault. So it doesn't seem fair that they would pass this on to the consumer. But I guess that's what utilities do. But would they have been notified? Would they have just known this was happening from maybe the news? Like, like, I just, I just feel it would have been in the responsibility of the energy company to say, hey, heads up, this is about to get real expensive.

[Ben]

Right? Yeah, it's tough. And also, we have to remember it was happening so quickly. You know what I mean? People have zero prep time. But as we record today, Texas officials are cracking down on businesses that have been accused of hiking the prices of food and water and hotel rooms, especially while the state is still battling through the shortages that were caused by these storms. Like, people were going to hotels, not even nice hotels. They were finding that the price had been hiked up to 900 bucks because folks would pay it. There was something I found especially wholesome in a very dystopian way. There was a store, like a, you know, like a little grocery store that or a gas station that had closed down because of the storm and because they didn't have power. And some locals had been like breaking into this place to get water. But then they started paying on an honor system. And so there's like this pile of cash on the floor and a nice little like a nice note, which I thought was a really, I thought that was a really human thing, which, I mean is a compliment. But back to the water. More than 12 million people found their water service disrupted. More than 200,000 people in Texas live in areas where water systems were completely non operational. We've got, especially in rural Texas, we've got a lot of people who have wells. And generally I think that is an awesome idea. But we had some folks contact us and Say, you know, we thought we'd be okay, but our wells, our wells were frozen, you know what I mean? And we're not on the grid, so what can we do?

[Noel]

Can't access that water if it's all locked up in ice.

[Matt]

Well, there's an additional thing there with like depending on where that water is coming from in that well, where it's, you know, where it's dug into. Just imagine all the chemicals and stuff that are going into land across parts of Texas. Yikes.

[Noel]

Because of what?

[Matt]

Fracking mostly.

[Noel]

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ben]

Oh, that's right. That's a good point, Matt, because the fracking is still in the chat. Very much so. The frack chat is the frack chat. Yeah, hold on one. And this is where we get to some much needed levity here. Something happened in the ensuing information war, narrative war that would be hilarious if it was not so, so very dumb while people were dying. Several pundits and politicians in the beginning of this crisis tried to blame the power failures on renewable energy, specifically windmills. That's right, they are the villain of this story. Big Wind, which sounds like, you know, a street name for someone who is flatulent. But this, this is really easy to disprove. I know we all saw the clips, but Honestly folks, maybe 23% of Texas's energy comes from renewable sources. Like all of them together.

[Noel]

It sounds a whole lot like a pay no attention to the man behind the curtain scenario. You know what I mean? Like, look over here. Misdirection. And also, it's obviously an agenda as well, because as we discussed, I mean, Texas has a history of fossil fuels and fossil fuel extraction, so they're best in. And they don't want to be told what to do by big government, you know, and something like this creepy green New Deal, right?

[Ben]

Exactly, exactly. And you know, natural gas powers most of that grid if you looked at the statistical breakdown. So really natural gas is the first thing you should be looking at in these power related emergencies. And production of natural gas had plummeted due to the freezing conditions. Right. Which made it difficult for power plants to get the fuel necessary to generate electricity. So you can have a working car, but if you don't have the gas, you're not going anywhere. That's what happened to a lot of these plants. They don't store a bunch of fuel on site, it has to be brought to them continually. But that being said, here is a. Let me know if we should keep this in, guys. Here is a hot take from Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who is known for his somewhat opinionated Facebook post, trying very hard to be fair.

[Noel]

Yep, that's right. Miller said we should never build another wind turbine in Texas.

[Matt]

We should never build another wind turbine in Texas.

[Noel]

Full stop. Full stop. I mean, maybe he's just a big fan of birds and he's just triggered by wind turbines, you know, because of whatever.

[Ben]

Maybe scared of windmills.

[Noel]

Maybe he's scared of windmills. Maybe he's a Don Quixote type figure.

[Ben]

Then he had another Facebook post where he said, insult added to injury. Those ugly wind turbines out there are among the main reasons we are experiencing electricity blackouts. Isn't that ironic? Don't you think that's an Alana Moreset reference. Yeah. Anyway, he continues, he goes, so much for the unsightly and unproductive energy robbing Obama monuments. At least they show us where idiots live.

[Noel]

Oh, my. You know who he sounds like? I can. You think? I think you know who he sounds like? Just Trump. Yeah.

[Hayes Davenport]

Yeah.

[Noel]

That's a familiar tone that we haven't been hearing as much of lately. It's in terms of that just out and out, you know, name calling and hyperbole. Yeah, Obama monuments. He should have just called gone the next extra mile and called them Obama.

[Matt]

Yeah.

[Ben]

You know, I do like the. I gotta say, I objectively like the cadence. There's something about those three M's, how they kind of ride the beat in that phrase. Papama monuments.

[Noel]

You're right. You're right, Ben.

[Ben]

But I agree with you that as a portmanteau. Oh, what was it?

[Noel]

Oh, bonuments.

[Ben]

Bonuments. Yeah, there it is. There's something else here. We received some correspondence from a lot of our fellow listeners, including our main man James, who told us that there appears to be some corruption regarding who was able to keep power. It appears that some wealthy residents or people residing in wealthy zip codes got preferential treatment. We do know that ERCOT and the utilities were able to direct these blackouts, right? To a degree, because they prioritized things like keeping the power on at the fire station or the power on at the hospital or the precinct. You know what I mean? And those are normal things to do during a disaster. The question is, did, for instance, someone who, like, let's say you're a high up person in like, industry or local politics, are you able to then call the person running things at your local utility and say, hey, the power and my zip code stays on. And they're like, you got it. Just remember me at the next. I don't know. Illuminati Cookout.

[Noel]

Illuminati Cookout.

[Ben]

Illuminati Cookout. And. Or the next. The next Bohemian Propane Grove. Love it. Okay, so. So that now we're looking at the aftermath and this is still happening, by the way, where this is. This should just be considered a kind of 101 explainer of the opportunities for corruption and conspiracy. The situation and the weather are improving, but still tons and tons of people don't have power and don't have clean water.

[Matt]

By the way, I just got. My friend Vanessa, who lives out, I think near in the Fort Worth area, just called me back and left a voicemail, but I don't have access to that. I may get a text in a moment just to give an update on the ground. So we'll do that before this episode ends if. If we can.

[Ben]

And there is hope on the horizon, folks. We didn't want this to end with total gloom and doom. Senator Ted Cruz, who was witnessed abandoning his state during the ongoing disaster for an abortive trip to Cancun, officially returned when the press caught the story.

[Noel]

Nah, he was always coming back. He was always coming right back. He just, he just had to go to be a dad for, for a day to make make sure, get the kids all settled in to the. The. Was it the four seasons, I believe. And then he was always going to come right back, you know, with a giant rolling suitcase. I'm sorry I'm being snarky. I just. Yeah, people only do stuff they're supposed to do when they get caught. And I don't know how he thought he would get away with this, but

[Matt]

money, money, as we've said numerous times, and Ben, this is a mantra that we have on this show. Money is a superpower. It's the close closest thing you're gonna get to it. Ted Cruz, Ted Cruz has some money. He was like, what is this? What? Nah. And he got out of there. Look, I know it's not a good political look and I know it's terrible and a lot of people are very, very mad at him. But, like, can you really blame him? He has the superpower to be able to go to Cancun when stuff goes bad.

[Ben]

So this is the thing. Regardless of how you feel about the guy, he caught a lot of bad press, and rightly so, because he kept changing his explanation for the trip. He kept changing his description of the trip.

[Noel]

And he's really bad at it, too. He's really bad at, like, lying in this way.

[Matt]

Yeah, yeah, I'm not, I'm not saying I think he's a great guy. Let me just leave it there. I'll have to walk it back a little bit. It's like the. You guys, if you guys don't listen. If any of you out there does not listen to the show. This is important on iHeartRadio, you should. They've got a segment with take. What is it? Take backs, apologies, things like that. This is my take back. Sorry. What I would say is watch SNL that just came out this past week. There's a great cold open that is describing what you guys are saying here.

[Ben]

Right. With the cornrows. Yeah. And this. So you know, the Calvary returns. He got dunked on in the, in the media because he was changing the explanation, description of the story. Other facts came out. There were some leaked text messages. People who love dogs were mad that they left their dog for what was sometimes described as a four day trip or like the length of time kept varying. But don't worry, after he changed his explanation several times, Senator Cruz is now currently on the ground and he's made sure to be photographed handing out water bottles. So truly it is the trying times that bring out the hero in all of us.

[Noel]

I mean, I basically think the man's a saint at this point.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's the thing though. Bilocation is a saint superpower. Right. It's one of the miracles. So he may still be in Cancun.

[Noel]

Wouldn't that be cool? Maybe he has a clone. Anyway, he could have handled the pr, you know, fall out a little better if he did have a cloth or a better disguise or something. You know, even with the mask he stuck out like a sore thumb in the airport.

[Ben]

Yeah, get a, get a, even a really lazy ID like travel is said truths or something like that. But, but now, I mean that, that aside, we know there are ramifications brewing for everybody here for the businesses. Like Ted Cruz was getting tried in the court of public opinion. But some of these energy providers are going to, you know, actual court.

[Noel]

Well, it's like we said at the beginning. I mean it's, it's, it's a. When, when these things start to break, it just becomes a series of fingers pointing. And when a finger points at you, you point your finger at someone else and then that finger points at somewhere someone else and then it's up to the courts to decide who deserves the finger.

[Ben]

That's why I point with my whole hand. Never, never just one finger.

[Matt]

Give him the whole hand. Give him, the never the finger.

[Ben]

What's the thing presidents have to do? You have to kind of like point with your thumb when you talk so you don't look like a dictator. Someone got paid to figure that out.

[Matt]

Was Bill Clinton. Is it was that he figured it out.

[Ben]

He was the first one. Someone told him to do that. But right now, as we speak, there is a class action lawsuit in the works for a Texas electric retailer named Gritty. They're getting sued for $1 billion.

[Noel]

Wait, Gritty, like the mascot of Michigan? No. Philadelphia.

[Ben]

No, no. Two Ds.

[Noel]

It's a cute sounding name though. I'm not going to lie.

[Ben]

True, it feels like an app.

[Matt]

And for sure that's not the only lawsuit that's coming out. There's. There are going to be so many happening just in the next couple of years here because of the situation. And we also know that ercot, that Energy Reliability Council, that's not. The folks who are in charge of that thing are not getting away scot free either.

[Noel]

There's been a cascade of resignations, correct?

[Matt]

Yeah, that's correct. Or at least as of right now, I believe it's six people who are leaving.

[Noel]

That's a minor cascade.

[Matt]

Yeah, yeah, it was. I know, five initially. Five members of the board, they all tenored their resignation. Four of them, I think in one message and then another one separately and including, I believe that's the head of the board. Right, the chair. The board chair left.

[Ben]

Yeah, yeah. These resignations are all from the board of directors. But the headline might be a little bit misleading in this one because in the joint resignation letter that I think four of these people wrote, they said that they were motivated to resign because people had objected to the fact that these four people did not themselves reside in Texas. So they said, I like the way you would put it off air, Matt. They basically threw their hands up and were like, okay, yeah, no.

[Matt]

Oh yeah, you guys deal with this. Oh, that's cool. We'll get out of here.

[Ben]

Buck pass. Officially.

[Matt]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Hayes Davenport]

Great.

[Sam J]

All right.

[Ben]

All right.

[Matt]

We're going to Cancun spring break forever.

[Noel]

So.

[Ben]

So we are, we are, you know, we are trying to handle this with, with levity. But it is, it is true that regardless of how you feel about the role of government, the role of private industry, or how you feel about the weather, these three things all played a role. Whether through their absence or whether through their strategies, they all played a role in this terrifying series of events. In these situations, everybody wants someone to blame. Like we said at the Very top of the episode. But really, you can't blame a utilities commission for not being able to control the weather, right? That's. That's just something we all have to deal with. And then when you think about winterizing, if you dig down into the boring stuff about winterization, you'll see that no small number of experts are saying at this point it might be better to build out new infrastructure that's already created to be weatherproof than spending the money trying to winterize the existing stuff.

[Noel]

I think the issue that I have with that idea of you can't blame them, is the political stance of so many people in power in a state like that involves climate change denial. And this is an absolute, in my opinion, example of the climate changing. So all these climate deniers that are like, you know, burying their head in the sand saying, nothing to see here, nothing's going to happen, then stuff like this happens and they weren't prepared because they denied it.

[Ben]

I think that's, you know, I think that is a good point. I think it's a valid point. And also the weather is becoming increasingly unpredictable. If you are lucky enough to have elderly people in your life, family or friends, right? And when I say elderly, I sit, I'm thinking like 70 plus. If you have people like that in your life and you have some time, ask them how the weather was when they were growing up, you're. You're going to. If they haven't already told you. I know there's a stereotype that older people like to talk about weather, but they haven't already told you. I guarantee that you will see from firsthand experience that there has been a noticeable change of weather over those seven decades those people were alive. And that makes the problem even tougher. That's the question we have to end on, a question. How can we prepare for things that we can't predict? Can we afford to prepare for everything, no matter how unlikely it may seem?

[Fred Armisen]

Should we.

[Ben]

Should we even do that? You know, like Matt, we have this thing where we put in related episodes when we're working on the show. And Matt, you cited a really great one that I didn't necessarily think about immediately, which was our question about whether a solar flare can destroy civilization. The answer is yes.

[Matt]

Oh, yeah. Because the whole point, I almost brought it up earlier. We were talking about how long the power was out and how long it could have been out.

[Noel]

Right.

[Matt]

And if it was out for weeks, then you're dealing with potentially the collapse of civilization in Texas. And that's exactly what that episode was about. Because when you're. When you're out, when power cannot be turned on for a certain amount of time, right now, because of all of the infrastructure and how everything functions, if it was off for long enough, I don't have any headphones, phones anymore. If it was long enough for. If it was out for long enough, it's absolute chaos. My son really wants me to tell you guys about chaos and how exciting it is.

[Noel]

Is he a proponent of chaos theory?

[Matt]

Oh, he's trying to get me to open a Bark's Root Beer.

[Noel]

Oh, got it. I mean, look, we can see what you're talking about, Matt, just by the series of events in this story that happened over the span of, like, several days. You know, I mean, it really triggers an absolute domino effect of things going horribly, horribly wrong. So, you know, given a longer period of time with the right conditions, it absolutely would lead to the collapse of civilization if things were, you know, just wrong enough.

[Ben]

But then on the other hand, you know, it's still kind of a gamble, arguably, because we take the solar flare example. We're just using that because it's like an apocalyptic movie plot. In the solar flare example, if you take the steps to harden an electric grid right, against this unpredictable event, then what if one doesn't come for 50 years? Then you just look like you're incredibly paranoid. There's that other. But there's this other example we talked a little bit about off air back when the modern London sewer system was being built. The guy who was heading it up said, look, we're only going to do this once. I've got all the estimates, everything that is reasonable, but we're going to go way bigger. We're going to make these pipes like twice as big as they need to be. Because if we don't, this is going to come back to haunt us. And everybody was like, you're crazy, dude. I don't know what your thing with pipes is, but you need to pump your brakes. And it turns out he was right. That's the only reason the London sewer system still works, is because someone had the foresight to think about these future possibilities. And they also didn't have a problem with being mocked for them. Like the guy who talked about washing your hands and ended up in an insane asylum.

[Noel]

Yeah, exactly.

[Ben]

And these are questions for you folks. We want to hear, want to hear your thoughts. What's the answer here? How do we avoid this massive tragedy and tragedies like this in the future? Is there stuff we should do? Is federal Regulation, the answer for Texas. A lot of people are going to say no. A lot of people say that misses the point. Is better predictive weather models. Do we just tell everybody to constantly live as though civilization may collapse in the next 72 hours?

[Fred Armisen]

That's.

[Matt]

That's the one. That's the one. Speaking of, my friend Vanessa just got back to me and it's exactly this. I'm going to read this verbatim to you. We are key preppers. So we were prepared, but we had zero electricity. Not rolling for 84 hours. 84 hours. The temperatures in our home got to 40 degrees. It was in the 40s. We were okay, but we had supplies. The elderly in our area had it very hard. Lots of pipes and damage. But it's 80 degrees here today. Geoengineering is wacky. So basically, yeah, unless you are a prepper, essentially, or you see yourself as that way and are prepared for this stuff, you may not be ready. When something like this goes down. On the individual level, the home level, the apartment level, whatever it is, it would be great if the companies and these big organizations and the profit centers instead were prepared.

[Ben]

Right, right. And as we continue, doubtlessly more information is going to come out about how this catastrophe was handled and that may change everybody's view of the sequence of events. That's, that's just the nature of how these sorts of investigations work. On a side note, you guys, I finally did it. I achieved my dream of getting a French mre, which is an RC ir. They're just streets ahead.

[Noel]

Is it like chicken cordon bleu? What are we talking here?

[Ben]

They got some good stuff. Like they all come with a pate. There's one that's like boar pate. B O A R. They've got some good stuff.

[Noel]

I'll.

[Ben]

I'll send you guys pics when they

[Matt]

come in, but as long as there's something L' orange in there, then we're good.

[Noel]

I gotta ask you guys though, in a year or guys, again, the year that has already felt like half a year, let's just consider this a continuation of last year. Just chock full of crazy historical, unprecedented events. Where do you think this one ranks?

[Matt]

Thanks.

[Ben]

Tough to say honestly, because if the past several months have taught us anything, it is that the motto for the motto for this year. The motto for last year. The motto for last year was it's always something. Right. And the motto for this year may well be, but wait, there's more. So I'm having a tough time. I think it's a great question and it's one we should send to you, our fellow listeners. How would you rank it? What else is not getting reported? Because we can assure you there's a lot. And also, how would somebody untangle the complicated situation of Texas Energy? What is the solution and how plausible do you think it is for that solution to be achieved before another event like this occurs? We want to hear from you. We try to make it easy to find us online.

[Matt]

You can find us on Facebook and Twitter where we are conspiracy stuff. On Instagram we are conspiracy stuff. Show those are, you know, easy ways to follow along with us and maybe write to us. Another way is to join. Here's where it gets crazy. That's our Facebook page. Lots and lots of us are already on there and it'd be great to see your face there too.

[Noel]

And if you want to do a different kind of writing, why not write us a nice review on Apple Podcast or the podcatcher of your choice. But preferably Apple Podcast helps us get up there in the rankings and helps people discover the show. It's true.

[Ben]

And I want to thank everybody who reached out to me personally and said that we ruined their day with that episode about baby food. Sorry, but I think it's just better

[Noel]

to know my hands are clean. I was on adventures.

[Ben]

You were on adventures. That's correct. If you don't want to contact us via social media, absolutely understand. We have another way to get in touch with us. We went legit and got we went semi legit and got a call in number we are 1-833-STD-W Y-T K. You have three minutes. Those minutes belong to you. Do with them what you will. Here's what we suggest. If you if you have an idea, tackle it this way way. Tell us your name or your cool nickname or moniker at the top. Tell us your story, your response, your topic suggestion. If there's anything that you want to just keep between us and the nsa, then you can save that for the end and tell us then. And perhaps most importantly, if you have a in depth story or you have an in depth question or something you want to share with us, don't feel like you have to edit your yourself down to three minutes. Just go ahead and send us an email. We do read them all and we greatly appreciate them. You can hit us up there any time of day, any state you're in, mental or physical at our good old

[Noel]

fashioned email address where we are [e-mail].

[Matt]

Stuff they don't want yout to Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Ben]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.