From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission control of decades. 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. Uh, 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 Old Smar, Florida. You know, the one who uh tried to poison the city with lie I believe it was, which apparently is a thing that goes in water in some small amount and he just upped the anteam yep. And then we talked about the Brian that gets produced that maybe radioactive. No, it is radioactive in making energy from fracking and other processes. Who new infrastructure could be so terrifying and fascinating and still so boring. 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 good to do much to help you get elected. 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. Right. 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're resent having to spend the money. But then you know it's nice when it does work, but then you forget all about it. 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 text in 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. Uh. You know, first, this storm was not restricted to Texas. It hit parts of northern Mexico. It hit huge swaths of the US 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, 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 two small plants started popping up. I guess 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. UH. And the phenomenon on of this interconnectedness accelerated during the First World War because it was necessary absolutely and expansion continue more and more folks living further and further away from city centers. And guess what in World War Two, that expansion continued and the interconnectedness grew more connected, solidified. I don't know what we can want to call it connecting? Yes, yes, um. And something else interesting happened during the World War two times here in the US, specifically out Texas Way, UH, utilities there in Texas began joining together to ben you've written in the outline here vultroning up. And I love that that concept of all of the different plants and electrical mini grids. They're just vultron ing to become one giant. What's what's bigger than a mega watt or kill a watt giga watts power rangering up, becoming a megatron of sorts, right, or they assembled the Avengers. Look, we we spend a lot of time. Yeah, So they formed something collectively known as the Texas Interconnected System. Let's call it the t I S for the sake of brevity. 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 this is where our first plots starts. So for a very long time, this t I S 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 watch rights. 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 is a thing kind of at the heart of like Texas history, right, I mean, they're they've always kind of threatened to secede from the Union or formed their own you know, mega state or whatever. Um. It seems to be that that autonomy and that fear or resentment of big government is very much ingrained into the history of the state of Texas. And remember another thing, there's a reason it's called Texas t oil. That is, 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 soil. Also, they don't want anyone coming in and drinking up their milkshake, right, Yeah, they've got Texas is a resource rich state in a resource rich country. Uh, 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 really interesting study I read a number of years ago about which US states could function autonomously like with like just in terms of providing resources for the people who already lived there than geopolitical about it. And you know, California is on that list, but Texas is on that list. Too. It's a big, big place with a lot of stuff, very climate um you know, a ton of agriculture as well. So with all this, 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 back in 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 that they currently handle all this stuff today. So what was texas 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 loan star approach to energy and the rest of you. You other forty nine states, well there weren't fifty at that point. Can continue your own song and dance, just leave us out of it. It makes me think of something Hank Hill might say, is like, Wow, what I ever want to leave Texas exactly? And also good luck to you Hawaii and Alaska getting power lines out to where you are right the caption says laughs in Texans. Uh yes, So Texas have flirted with the idea of regularly san at various points and uh until the nineteen seventies, they have virtually no regulation. In nineteen seventy, something you've probably heard a lot of in the news recently was formed. It's the Energy Reliability Council of Texas or ERCOTT. Not to be confused, as we discussed earlier with ERGOT poisoning or EPCOT at Disney. Arcott is not as bad as RGOT poisoning, and it is probably not as fun to visit there as it is to visit EPCOTT. So I feel like that's a very fair way, a fair spectrum pitter caught off. Sure, well, you definitely can't get a Belgian beer while walking around parts of URKOTT. I don't think it works that way. You're right, that's true. You also probably won't get spasms, diarrhea, mania, psychosis, headaches, nausea, vomiting. The squamation, that's not that's not EPCOT. That's that's that's not what got's about. Man. Uh. The squad ation is a grizzly word of the day. It's it's uh. Its street name is skin peeling. Anyway, anyway, before I take us too far down the wrong rabbit hole or cop was formed UH largely in reaction to a massive blackout in November of nineteen sixty, which some of our listeners may may remember. When Texas went back to deregulation in the ninet nineties, this agency, this institution, URCOTT assumed additional responsibilities, and the entire time they kept that old, that old goal. They stayed beyond the reach of the fetes. There are complications because the thing about these sorts of grand, multi generational schemes with many moving parts, because they never work out one I wish people would just say that at the top of this kind of stuff, they never work out a percent. There are always exceptions, They are always missteps. They're always plot twist and over the years, Texas itself has breached its energy independence a couple of times out of necessity, I would say, yep. Once it happened during World War Two, when special provisions were made to link Texas to other grids. Uh in time of crisis. Obviously makes sense. Um, glad they went along with it, but I guess they could probably have had their arms twisted as well. Uh. Then there's uh nineteen seventy six, during an event known as very sexy event named the Midnight Connection. It's also our that's the inspiration for our stuff. They'll want you to know R and B bands. Yes, And that was when a Texas utility on purpose flipped a switch and sent power to Oklahoma just for a few hours. Uh. 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 saying off those larger grids. 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 to situation. I love I love the concept there. In two thousand eleven, the States 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. The expression and have your cake and needed too is always really fascinating. You know. It makes me think of Schrodinger's cat. Uh we call it like it's there and not there at the same time, which is we just started referring to that as Schrodinger's cake. I like that, and and we we say it this way, having your cake and eating 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. What it doesn't mean they're being regulated by the FEDS. They've they've they've still got some regulation. When it comes to ERCOTT, 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 some of the ways it works online, but they're they're kind of overseen by the Public Utility Commission of Texas. And I only say kind of because it feels a little strange sometimes at least from an outside perspective about who is actually in charge in many situations. Yeah. Absolutely, because we've 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. Uh and that's why you see er Coott getting a lot of the a lot of the sp light of infamy and controversy. Right now, Arcot 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. Of Texas falls under the purview of ARCOT and uh well as as I think we mentioned earlier, the parts of Texas that we're in that ten percent or were in areas that hadn't fully deregulated, weathered the literal 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 they do not trigger federal oversight, which is what these organizations want. Everything was going fine now under a deregulated market. Yes, uh many people in Texas were paying more for power than they would have in a 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 massive winter storms. I really thought, you're the same massive winter. We'll keep the we'll keep this part in just where we could just bleep the storms. Remember that line from that that robot voice track on Okay computer. He says for all and winter, Yeah, let's keep this whole thing. So, uh so there was this because we'll need the levity in a second. Um, there was an unprecedented Matt. You've heard there was a mass of storm. There were actually two. There was a pair of winter storms that caused record low temperatures across the state. First one hits February to February eleven, and then another one in February to February seventeen. Just for a step shot, temperatures in Dallas Fort Worth plummeted to negative two degrees fair kneit minus nineteen degrees celsius. It is clearly like unprecedented to to be fair, maybe is the right word. Uh, this is something that's never really happened there before, right right, yet, this was a record that hadn't been broken for seventy two years at the very least in Dallas. But but you absolutely rights unprecedented for all two hundred and fifty four 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 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 four point three million homes and businesses in Texas alone lost power for some amount of time. Yeah, and that we know of people lost their lives as a direct result of this absolute catastrophe, 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. Uh, 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 a two light of a word, but it's a terrible thing that has gone on. 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, 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. 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, we're not mandated to do things that other other organizations in other states do have to do. They didn't institute certain safety measures like winter rising equipment and facilities. Winter rizing is being thrown around like a buzzword, but it just means weather proofing, you know what I mean, Like, it just means let's get maybe insulator material around various equipment and components and structures. On a smaller scale, it reminds me a lot of what happened here in Atlanta several years ago with the snow apocalypse. 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. Uh. And this is that, but on a completely fundamental level that affects so many things. Because again that word interconnectedness, and we're gonna get to a lot of that. But one of the reasons that it is not quite the same, but it is applicable here. The suation in Atlanta during snow apocalypse 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 of days, have anything. They overprep now or they overreact, you know, I don't. 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 bridge just like part of it just wasn't there, and we got a really sketchy story about people starting a fire a bridge, which is like an episode of Always Sunny. They also blamed on like the homeless population, smoking math or something that ended up being a complete fabrication or at the very least a real reach. I am not I'm not speaking to this nonsense of which you are speaking. This is nonsense, and I agree with 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. Uh and steps were taken, 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 there's a great quote in literature. Maybe it was check off. Someone check me on this, check me on my check off. I can't remember which authors said it, but they said, like 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. I know this might be maybe unpopular, is 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 apparent 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 it's a three snow plows. And there were even people, you know, real uh thrift talks, very fiscally conservative people who are saying, why are we even wasting money on this? This is these snowplows are 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 snow apocalypse in Atlanta. But as Michael Weber pointed out he is energy resources professor at the University of Texas in 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 you can have a wild margin error. If you're using that outdated weather as as your roadmap, then of course you're going to say things don't freeze, you know it just it makes sense. Well, they also didn't learn from past occurrences where this very thing has happened. And then not like not that long ago that we mentioned in our our our episode that we already that we've mentioned this in before, we talked about how it's happened several times in the past where this very thing occurred. Yeah, you're absolutely right, and this um 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, because there are other hungry people out there they want to eat our electric lunch. Is this a byproduct of of of the complete isolation of their power system, having no subsidization and no assistance from Uncle Samuel. Yeah, this is this is something that comes out of the deregulation for sure. And at this point I suggest that we we pause for a moment, not for a word from our sponsors, but from for a word from some of our fellow listeners were 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? I guess it was a little while, like 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 two 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. And um, thankfully he and in 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 a setup. Uh, 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 over there, and you can cook anything you need to. Um, So that was very very good. The big problem, he said, was the water and gaining access to water during all of this uh stuff, Because if busted burst pipes are just frozen. They're 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 called offline and that can lower that can result in lower water pressure those two factors, and at us 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 gonna have to build a fire. You're gonna have to be like Matt's uncle and have a gas stove or something like that. 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 gonna boil, then I guess mixed with some cold water and pour on yourself. It becomes a big issue. Just dealt with this when our water heater went out. Speaking of brush pipes and just firsthand accounts, John Oliver did a really great segment on this and and showed some really shocking images of this, uh 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 stillag tights that go down these you know, ice crystals coming down off of the ceiling fan blades, which could only have been because of burst pipes and water leaking through the ceiling right. 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. But 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 the sinister and then uh, you know, 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, uh, once you have found some modicum of physical safety, you're very next thing, no matter what, your very next thing is to figure out where you are going to find potable water the you can. 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 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. Uh. 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. 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, or diverted well where there was an inequality in in power distribution depending on essentially a zip code or a neighborhood or something like that. I can't speak to all of those, but I can tell you I've been in my family's house. It is lovely, isn't a ridiculously nice area? And they still lost power just as frequently as everybody else. Sure, and I don't know exactly where Senator Ted Crews lives, but his house apparently got cold enough that they decided to piss off to uh what is it? Cancoon? Yeah, and we'll we'll look into that a little bit later in the episode two. Before we move on, I want to thank Miles b uh 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 noticed 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 um, if they were around something like emergency responder building or a hospital something like that. Uh, Jacob. You also noted that the story from our cot kept changing as far as wind power would be restored, how Roland blackouts would work, etcetera. Uh and said Encore was giving updates like, oh, power is gonna be on in fifteen minutes, Oh, your power is on. Power was not on right right, And there's there's kind of a fog of war with this too. You know, there's so many moving parts, but here's to appen. When the power outages began, natural gas plants, utility scale wind turbines, coal and nuclear plants, all of those started to trip, meaning, you know, 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. 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 could handle it. And that's why our coot. But that's their logic for ordering utilities to institute rolling blackouts, which are probably familiar to in Ron fans in California, if there are any in Rod fans left after after their massive debacle. And this is a big note that been 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 is 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. So the logic here is theoretically sound. Orcott says, look, we have to we have to kind of cut off an arm to save the body temporarily. Right, 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 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, the and 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 gonna 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 in the way you suspect. We're back, Okay, So imagine you are one of the lucky few, through accident, fate, or design, managed to keep your power for some or all of thet 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. 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. There's a little bit inside baseball here. But here's what happened. One megawatt of what's called wholesale power went from fifty bucks to nine thousand dollars. Wholesale power is something that a business will buy and then they will sell it or provided to consumers. So this wouldn't affect you. If you add 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 at the power company, and you you can make one of a couple of 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 twelve months. So if there's a surgeon price or demand, I won't have to pay more than my you know, thirty cents or but thirty five or whatever. But if the price goes lower than that dollar thirty five, I still have to pay the dollar thirty five. So you're kind of in a casino with a power company. 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, I'll tell you. I look, I'll give you my opinion. I've been I've been officially paying for power now since two thousand four, so I've been paying a separate power bill since a thousand four. Um. I have attempted the variable style once and it's the only time I had to pay ridiculous amounts of money for power. Uh and did the same thing with heating bills only once you got me once, never will do it again. I've always felt it fixed rate seemed like the safest bet, and I'm a fixed rate man myself. Yeah, agreed. Again, these are our personal experiences. Your mileage may vary. But there are power monopolies here in Georgia, so you have so you are forced to deal with them, and they want you to gamble, and and I I personally am not a big fan of gambling. And I do think you know, you could say I'm being hyperbolic or whatever by describing it as this, but it is it is gambling And I had an experience like you met um. Variable can work if you like astute lee time it and you pay attention and pay close attention. Fixed rate it's kind of like you're just paying more for the certitude and the predictability. So, uh, 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 were 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 seven hundred square foot apartment, pretty small. She was keeping it at sixty degrees. She didn't lose power for very long. When she got her power bill, it was one thousand dollars. 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? Is it supply and demand or is it price gouging? It's is an accident? Yeah, I just I don't know, Well, the bill is not an accident. That's how much the energy cost when they were attempting REMP when they're going through this crisis. If energy was being supplied to your home. The supply demand. Baby, it's messed up. It's really messed up. We can get into that a little more as we get to the conclusion here, but yeah, the the big thing is that a lot of people dealt with something like that huge in the thousands bills that were coming to and ultimately, as we'll see, this will have to be decided in the courts, I think. Uh. One guy was talking to NBC News and he said, I have a two bedroom home. My power bill is usually fifty bucks, but this month it's more than three thousand dollars, 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. Uh, and then they found their bill ended up being ten thousand dollars and the price gouging didn't stop there. It didn't stop with power bills because remember, this is a crisis. Well yeah, and I get that, and I understand that this is a crisis for the energy end of it, to the provider, but again it's it's kind of their fault. Uh, 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 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 coming to say, hey, heads up, this is about to get real expensive. Right. Yeah, it's tough. And it also we have to remember it was happening so quickly, you know what I mean, people buzzy, real 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, uh that were caused by these storms. Like people were going to hotels, not even nice hotels. It was finding that the price had been hyped up to nine hundred bucks because folks will pay it. There was 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 uh because they didn't have power, and some locals have been like breaking into this place to get water. But then they started paying on an honors 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 twelve million people found the water service disrupted. More than two hundred thousand 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 to 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. We're not on the grid, So what can we do? Can't access that water if it's all locked up in ice well. There's an additional thing they would like depending on where that water is coming from 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, because of what fracking mostly Yeah, that's right. That's a good point that because the fracking is still in the chat very much the fract chat. Yeah, hold on what and this is where we get to uh some much needed levity here. Uh. Something happened in the ensuing information war or narrative war. Uh. That would be hilarious if it was not so so very dumb whild people were dying. Uh. Several pundits and politicians in the beginning of this crisis tried to blame the power failures on renewable energy, specifically wind mills. That's right. They are the villain of this story, big wind, which sounds like, you know, a street name for someone who has flathle it. But this, this is really easy to disprove. I know, we all saw the clips, but honestly, folks, maybe twenty three of texas Is energy comes from renewable sources, like all of them together. It sounds a whole lot like a pay no attention to the man behind the curtains scenario, you know what I mean, they look over here misdirection. And also it's obviously an agenda as well, because as we discussed, I mean Texas as a history of of fossil fuels and fossil fuel extractions. So they're best in and and they don't want to be told what to do by big government, you know, and something like this, this creepy green new d exactly exactly. And you know, natural gas powers most of that grid because 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. Um Here here is a hot take from Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who is known were his uh somewhat opinionated Facebook post trying very hard to be fair here, yep, that's right. Uh Miller said we should never build another wind turbine in Texas. We should never build another wind turbine to Texas, 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 because whatever, maybe just scare the windmills. Maybe scared the windmills. Maybe he's a Don Quixote type figure. And then he had another Facebook post where he said, insults 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 alone that's more set reference. Yeah, Anyway, he continues, he goes so much for the unsightly and unproductive energy robbing Obama monuments. At least they show us where it's live. Oh my, you know who he sounds like? I can you think? I think you know who he sounds like? Just Trump. Yeah, that's a familiar tone that we haven't been hearing as much of lately. Uh it's in terms of that just out and out, you know, name calling and hyperbole. Uh yeah, Obama monuments. He should just call on the next extra mole and call them Obama means yeah, you know, I do like that. I gotta say I objectively like the cadence. Uh, there's something about those three ms how they kind of ride the beat in that in that phrase Obama monuments. You're right, but I agree with you that as a portmanteau. Oh what what was obuments? Oboluments? Yeah, there it is. Uh, there's there's something else here. We received some correspondence from a lot of our fellow listeners, including our main man, James, who was who told us that there there appears to be some corruption reguarding who was able to keep power. It appears that some wealthy residents or people residing and wealthy zip codes got preferential treatment. We do know that are caught and the utilities were able to direct these blackouts right to a degree because they prioritize 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 uh, I don't know, illuminating alumatic aluminatic look out uh. And for the next uh, the next bohemian propane grove. Uh. 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 one oh one explainer of the opportunities for corruption conspiracy. The situation and weather are improving, but still tons and tons of people don't have power and don't have clean water. And 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, um we we. 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, 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 going disaster for an a board of trip to cam Kun officially returned when the press caught the story. Nah, he was always coming back. He was always coming right back. He he just had to go to be a dad for for a day, to make sure you get the kids all settled in to the was it the four seasons? I believe, And then he was always going to come right back, you know, with a giant rolling suit. I'm sorry, I'm being uh 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 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 closest thing you're gonna get to it. Trus 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 can Kun when stuff goes bad. So this is the thing, Um, regardless value 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. And he's really bad at it too. He's really bad at like lying in this way. Yeah, I'm not I'm not saying I think he's a great guy. Literally, just leave that. They're walking back a little bit. It's like the you guys, if you guys don't listen, if any of you out there doesn't does not listen to the show. This is important on I Heart Radio. You should. They've got a segment with take what is it takebacks, apologies things like that, this is my take back. Sorry. Uh, 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 right with the corn Rows. Yeah, and this so you know the Calvary returns. Uh. 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. Um people who loved 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 uh is now currently on the ground and he's made sure to be photographed handed out water bottles. Uh So, truly, it is the trying times that bring out the hero and all of us. I mean, I basically think the man's a saying at this point yep. Yeah, I mean that's the thing that by location is a saint superpower, right, it's one of the miracles. So he may still be in camcoun wouldn't that be cool? Or maybe he has a clone. Anyway, he could have handled the pr you know, fall out a little better if he did have a clause or a better disguise or something. You know, even with the mask he stuck out like a sore thumb in the airport. Yeah, get a, get a even a really lazy idea like travel is said truths or something like that. But but now I mean that that aside. We know their ramifications brewing for everybody. 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. 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 else, someone else, and then it's up to the court to the side who deserves the finger. That's why I point with my whole hand, never never just one finger, the whole hand. So what's I think 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. Was that he figured it out. He was the first one someone told him to do that. But right now as we speak, there's a class action lawsuit in the works for Texas Electric retailer named Gritty. They're getting sued for one billion dollars. Wait, Gritty like the mascot of of Michigan, No PI, Philadelphia, No No two d's. It's a cute sounding name, though I'm not gonna lie true, it feels like an appeah. And for sure that's not the only lawsuit that's coming out. There's there are gonna be so many happening just in the next couple of years here because of the situation. And we also know that or COT, that Energy Reliability Council, that's not the folks who are in charge of that thing are not getting away scott free either. Has been a cascade of resignations, correct, Yeah, that's corrector at least as of right now. I believe it's six people who were leaving. That's a minor cascade. Let's say, yeah, yeah, it was I know five initially five members of the board. Uh. They all tendered 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 the yeah, yeah, people, 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 through their hands up and We're like, okay, yeah, oh yeah, you guys deal with this. Oh that's cool. We'll get out of here. Buck passed official ruspering break forever. So um, so we are we are, you know, we're trying to handle this with with levity. But it is it is true that regardless of 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 in what whether through their absence or whether through their strategies, they all played a role in this, uh, in this terrifying series of events. You 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 winter rising, if you did down in to the boring stuff about winter ization, you'll see that, uh no, small number of experts are saying at this point it might be better to build out new infrastructure that's already you know, created to be weather proof than spending the money trying to winter rise the existing stuff. And I think that the issue that I have with with that idea of 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, um, example of the climate changing. So all these climate deniers that are like you know, baring 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. I think that's you know, I think that is a good point. I think it's a valid point. Uh. 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 you say elderly, I said, I'm thinking like seventy plus. If you have people like that in your life, and uh, 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 whether but they haven't already told you. I guarantee that you will see, uh from firsthand experience, that there has been a noticeable change of whether over those seven decades those people were alive, and that makes the problem even tougher. That's the question we have to end out 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? Should we? Should we even do that? You know? Like, like, um, Matt, you, we have this thing where we put in related episodes we're working on the show, and Matt, you 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, oh yeah, because the whole point we I almost brought it up earlier. We were talking about how long the power was out and how long it could have been out right, and if it was out for weeks, then you're dealing with potentially the collapse of civilization in Texas. Man. 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 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 is is he a proponent of chaos theory? He's trying to get me to open a root beer. I mean, look, we can see what you're talking about. That just by the series of events in this story that happened over the span of like several days, you know, I mean it really triggered 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 if if things were you know, just wrong enough. But then on the other hand, you know, it's still kind of a gamble, arguably because when we take the solar flare example, I'm just using that because it's like an apocalyptic movie plot. Uh. In the solar flare example, if you if you take the steps to harden elect an electric grid right against this this unpredictable event, then what happened, Like what if one doesn't come for fifty years, then you just look like you're incredibly paranoid. Uh, there's that other but there's this other example. We talked a little bit about off air. Uh. Back when the modern London sewer system was being built. The guy was heading it up said, look, we're only gonna do this once. I've got all the estimates, everything that is reasonable, but we're gonna go way bigger. We're gonna make these pipes like twice as big as they need to be because if we don't, this is gonna 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. Uh. And it turns out he was right. That's the only reason the London sewer system still works is because someone had the foresight, uh to 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 a sane asylum. Yeah exactly. And these are questions for you folks. We we want to hear. I want to hear your thoughts. What what's the answer here? How how do we avoid this massive tragedy and tragedies like this in the future. Uh, is there stuff we should do? Is should there is federal regulation? Uh? The answer for Texas, you know, a lot of people are gonna say no, A lot of people say that this is the point. Is better predictive weather models? Do we just tell everybody constantly live as those civilization may collapse in the next seventy two hours. That's that's the one. That's the one. Uh. Speaking of my friend Vanessa just got back to me and it's exactly this. I'm gonna read this verbatim to you. We are key preppers, so we were prepared, but we had zero electricity, not rolling for eighty four hours. Eighty four hours, the temperatures in our home got to four degrees because in the forties we were okay, but we had supplies. The elderly in our area had it very hard, lots of pipes and damage. But it's eighty 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, um, you may not be ready when something like this goes down on the individual level of the home level, the apartment level, whatever it is. UM, it would be great if the companies and these big organizations and the profit centers instead were prepared right right now. 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 I achieved my dream of getting a French M R E, which is an R C I R. They're they're just streets ahead, chicken cordon blur. What are we talking here? They got some good stuff, like they all come with a petty. There's one that's like border petty b o a r Uh. They've got some good stuff. I'll send you guys picks when they come in. But as long as there's something larange in the UM. I gotta ask you, guys though, Uh, in a year or guys again the year that has already felt like half a year. Uh, let's just consider this a continuation of last year. Uh, just chock full of crazy, historical, unprecedented events. Where do you think this one ranks? 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, model for last year was It's always something right, uh, 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. 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 right 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. 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, and I want to thank everybody who uh 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 to know my hands are clean. I was on Adventures, you're on Adventures. That's correct. Uh. If you don't want to contact us via social media, absolutely understand. We have another way to get in touch with us. Uh. We went legit and got we went semi legit and got a call in number. We are one eight three three st d w y t K. You have three minutes. Those minutes belong to you do with them what you will. Uh. Here's what we suggest if you if you have an idea, UH, tackle it this 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 n ess A, then you can save that for the end and tell us then, and perhaps most importantly, if you have an 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 yourself down to three minutes. Just go ahead and send us an email. We do read them all, uh and we greatly appreciate them. You can hit us up there any time of day, any state you're in, uh, mental or physical, at our good old fashioned email address where we are conspiracy at i heart radio dot com. Stuff they don't want you to know is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.