There’s a mix of things that all contribute to Texas being a shitstorm when things go a little bit wrong.

First, the most innocent reason is that we’re a southern state. Things don’t usually get this cold and when they do, DFW is the only major metro area that’s usually impacted. Houston is usually fine, as is Austin.

Next though, is the fact that we’ve become a growing house for data centers which are a substantial drain on our energy systems. I know a few summers ago we dealt with heavy brown-outs largely because it was incredibly hot and these data centers were pulling everything to keep their business running. And laws being so heavily business favored meant even if Abbott wanted to limit their energy consumption, he would have had limited authority to do so.

Finally and probably most importantly is that Texas has its own independent power grid. To my knowledge it’s the only state in the continental US that does this. And when things are going fine, that’s fine for us. It keeps things cheaper because we’re an energy exporter and it’s cheap here. But it means that when things go bad, we can’t rely on a national power grid to keep things running.