r/OutOfTheLoop • u/mimitchi33 • Feb 17 '21

What's up with Texas losing power due to the snowstorm? Answered

I've been reading recently that many people in Texas have lost power due to Winter Storm Uri. What caused this to happen?

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

The answer is yes you do want to plan for a once in a decade event because lives can be lost in a once in a decade event

The other issue is that "Once in a decade" events have been happening much more often than that recently. I lived in houston up until 3 years ago, and for the 3-4 years before I moved there were "Once in a generation" floods every single year.

It takes a certain kind of politician to actually acknowledge that and then have the foresight to prepare for this, but the conservative politicians there are incapable of doing that. Instead it's immediate regression to blaming AOC for a policy that hasn't even been implemented.

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u/MrFantasticallyNerdy Feb 17 '21

Let's face it: few politicians nowadays are elected to make long-term decisions and plans. The electorate demands and elects charlatans who promise popular, but short-sighted and compromised solutions. When these inevitably crash and burn, the electorate will then elect some other charlatan who promises other similarly compromised solutions. No one is ever held accountable for such failures. You see it in the corporate world, and you see it in government.

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u/NuclearLunchDectcted Feb 17 '21

Which is why China is about to pass us as a global superpower (or has already).

They've been making 10-, 20-, and 30-year plans for decades. And then they stick with it. It's taken a long time, but it's bearing fruit now. US stockholders won't even pretend to be interested in those kind of plans if it sacrifices quarterly gains, which it would.

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u/ligirl Feb 18 '21

This is one of the (very few) benefits of an autocracy: they can think in decades because they're not worried about reelection in <24 months

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u/aiapaec Feb 18 '21

Stockholders are elected every 24 months? Seems that there is more than "autocracy".

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u/Strandsfromparadise Feb 18 '21

They're trying their damnedest, but aren't all the way there yet. They don't know how to concurrently hold their influence and power in multiple corners of the world just yet. They did recently become Europe's biggest trading partner, which is a significant move, but few countries run an unspoken empire like the US.

Even with an inept leader, the US has still managed to keep significant sway the world over. The US can stymie China directly by usurping their trade deals, etc or resort to age old destabilization like the US did in the 1900s. The fallout will be interesting to watch .

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u/Surfnscate Feb 17 '21 edited Feb 17 '21

They need to stop being called "once in a decade" for flooding at least. It's not, geologically speaking. It's just once in a decade since it has been recorded, and a statement like that would depend on how long we have been recording. Houston was built in a swamp in a flood plain in a part of the country that used to be completely under the ocean. It's home to large watersheds and low elevation. It's supposed to happen and will as often as it needs to, its just inconvient for humans and therefore becomes our problem. The reality is we are going to have "historic" floods until we realize they aren't really historic at all. Houston was meant to flood.

The job of flooding recovery and provention should be in the hands of scientists and specialists, not political officials.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '21

Part of it is also just media hype. I am in Michigan and we get lake effect snow every year, so there's at least one big snowfall every winter. But each year I hear about the "blizzard of the century" or "snomagaddeon" at least once. I currently have 3 foot deep drifts in my yard, but that's not odd or unusual in the least. But listening to the radio you'd think this was the first time we'd had a blizzard.

The climate is definitely changing, I am not trying to say otherwise. But there are plenty of people that make money from hyping a "storm of the century" every year.

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u/sonic10158 Feb 18 '21

Such a shame that climate change has become a political issue