What s going on in Texas (and how you can help)
If you ve been keeping an eye on the news, you ve probably heard that Texas is facing a severe weather threat. Record-breaking cold temperatures are the result of harsh winter storms sweeping across the United States, and they have overwhelmed Texas, a state largely not used to these frosty conditions.
Freezing temperatures have led to mass blackouts and power shortages that have affected millions of Texans. Texas has an independent power grid, which means the standard practice of importing emergency energy from other states can t be accomplished. Governor Greg Abbott has criticized Texas s power grid operations, and Texas Speaker of the House Dade Phelan wants a legislative hearing on the issue.
Events - Saturday, February 20, 2021 - The Austin Chronicle
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It s criminal : A Texas community left without aid in the cold
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Gloria Vera-Bedolla, a Latina community organizer and mother of three, feels like her neighborhood near Austin, Texas, has been forgotten in a deep freeze that has plunged the state into a humanitarian crisis.
“We continue to be the victims of social injustice, food injustice, systemic racism all of it,” she said. “And lots of people don’t speak up because they’re not used to being heard.”
Known as Forest Bluff, Vera-Bedolla’s neighborhood is on the east side of Interstate 35, where a vast share of the city’s Black and Hispanic populations reside. Her family moved there in 2017 after rising property taxes pushed them out of central Austin, drawn by cheaper real estate and more square footage.