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Comment by nonameiguess | Hacker News Reader

Not a software outage, but the Texas ice storm of February resulted in me not receiving mail for two weeks, not being able to use the streets for at least a week (they never plowed and it just eventually melted), rolling blackout where I had power for about four hours a day, and no Internet service at all for the first two days. No water for most of the first day.

I'd argue keeping basic city services and roads operational is more important than a gaming platform, but city and state governments in the US often seem to not agree and are more than happy to save money skimping on maintenance and resilience.

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That behavior is a reflection of their citizenry who have been convinced by propaganda that government can never be effective at anything and therefore should not be funded properly.

>”citizenry who have been convinced by propaganda that government can never be effective at anything and therefore should not be funded properly.”

People are treating the Texas ice storm like it was some comeuppance event but the truth of the matter is that Texas rarely experiences this kind of winter weather and that’s the reason why it didn’t handle the big freeze the same way as a midwestern or northeastern state would.

The reason why cities like DFW do not maintain a fleet of snowplows isn't because of anti-government propaganda, but because it is completely uneconomical to do so. Even during the big freeze there wasn’t a foot of snow on the ground. The major roadways were salted, though, and you could drive on them.

Snow and icing events tend to only happen for a day or two each year in my part of Texas. And it is often the case that when temperatures do dip below zero there isn’t preceding rain or snow. But when that does happen, most people just ride it out for a day or two and wait for things to melt.

NERC created a report after the Texas 2011 ice storm power outage with recommendations for ERCOT generators to improve their weatherization standards [0]. In that report they referenced not only the 2011 incident but previous incidents where the grid generators failed to adequately prepare for potential problems due to weather related issues.

In the 2021 storm, hundreds of people died. Comeuppance is not the right word. I don't know the right one, but I believe it's closer to willful blindness or predatory delay.

[0] https://www.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/08-16-11-re...

It's a joke at this point: https://www.texastribune.org/2021/09/28/texas-power-grid-loo...

So. Do you think Texas should winterize or not?

Skimping on resilience has been done for decades as part of "cost cutting," in large part because even when we had staffing for resilience, we found that people would collect their check and not actually do the maintenance.

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