El Paso is on the Western Grid. It's also been above freezing since early Tuesday. Low on precipitation as well.

So yes. El Paso got an easy time of it. Pretty easy to remidiate things when you can actually move people and equipment around safely. More at 11.

On the other hand...

Most of the population centers in East Texas are still hard frozen pretty much consistently since Sunday, with precipitation to boot, thereby complicating infrastructure response because you can't get people mobilized with equipment as effectively when they are worried about dying doing so. Further, you've got issues with water systems breaking down all over the place as well.

https://www.localconditions.com/weather-dallas-texas/75201/p...

Go ahead, compare and contrast to your heart's content.

So with regards to El Paso, no surprise there, they missed half the bloody party. Good for them. Last I checked, there wasn't enough extra capacity on the national grids either to make up for the shortfalls in Texas either, so while some mitigation may have happened, the same compounding difficulties would have emerged.

I'm not saying ERCOT makes the most sense to anyone out there, I'm saying you need to actually calm down and realize who actually does what. ERCOT monitors, they do not operate.

Their role stops where hands meet controls. They can order utilities to put hands on controls, but for each provider, how they do what they are told is out of scope for ERCOT as long as they meet their obligations. In the game of remediating the entire grid in event of casualty, they provide the line of communication and data stream so that all the providers can work it out amongst themselves. Power providers do not implement controls in some magical ERCOT control room, and train ERCOT personnel how to control the transmission and generation equipment every utility member owns, operates, and maintains. These companies are power companies; electricity generation and transmission is what they do. ERCOT is a glorified message passer and dashboard gazer. This is a theme in Texas. People own things, councils oversee coordination. Members are responsible for working things out between themselves using the council and information they maintain as the coordination point.

You can be as livid as you want about it. No skin off my nose. I'm here living through it, and observing the difference between different service providers in terms of how competent they are handling their issues.

Some do great, others have failed epically. That is the goal Texas set out for with the ERCOT Marketplace. A bunch of providers with heterogenous operating parameters, with the goal of bringing power to the state while staying in-sync enough to get the job done.

Market forces are going to crush some providers. Those who failed are either going to have to dissolve or remediate their operations.

Neither the Eastern or Western grids have been the most reliable when Texas has connected with them in the past, and those times when problems knocked out power for Texans when other States dropped the ball have left a poor taste for the approach in Texas.

If you don't like it, or don't like planning for the occasional hiccup when another human being makes an unfortunate compounding series of mistakes, I don't know what to tell you. Don't move here, though I think you"ll find most other places have the same problems in different spaces.

I can only call it as I see it playing out on the ground. Texas hates/fundamentally distrusts centralized public management. This is their answer to it. They even more dislike non-Texans butting in and telling them how they should do things. It is a cultural thing, and something a lot of people don't seem to understand. So, it is what is.

><plugs ears> LA LA LA, WHAT YOU SAID WILL COST ME MONEY LA LA LA SOMEBODY ELSE'S PROBLEM."

I'm saddened you think that's what is going on. It's sad to think that there aren't a very dedicated group of people handling a very dynamic situation to the best of their ability. I've seen people brought together and self-organizing in this crisis, which to me, restores a modicum of faith in the people around me. The uninvolved cheerleaders demonizing or exploiting the crisis for political aims, clicks, something interesting to discuss, and personal aspirations can go sod themselves.

Looking at anything other than what you have to work with does nothing to facilitate real change. You do you, but don't expect someone sitting in the middle of it to buy into hyperbolic rhetoric that denies the fundamental nature of coordinating independent actors.

Now let it happen again in the next few years, and I'll be right there with you pounding the drum of incompetence, but as far as Texas as a state, it's the resident's collective perogative to operate the way they do.