Winter Storm URI and Environmental Racism
Texas faces the dichotomy of the low-income minority families freezing in their uninsulated homes as bills add up on their counter, not being able to work, worried about potential exposure to harmful toxins when the power plant that they live next to turns on, as their white male senator gets on a plane and leaves to Mexico to escape his uncomfortably cold house.
So far dozens of people have lost their lives due to winter storm Uri blowing through Texas and now Oklahoma, causing millions of people without power and affecting low-income minority families the most. Acres Home a predominantly Black and Latino community in Houston, was hit first by the power outage and their pipes froze, leaving them without electricity and water. Robert Bullard a professor at Texas Southern University told the New York Times, “Whether it’s flooding from severe weather events like hurricanes or it’s something like this severe cold, the history of our response to disasters is that these communities are hit first and have to suffer the longest,”.
While Texans are suffering through this climate change disaster, Senator Ted Cruz leaves with his family to Cancun, Mexico on Wednesday, Feb 17th. When he returned the next day he says to reporters at the airport, “Well, what I would say is I was taking care of my family, the same way that Texans all across the state were taking care of theirs,”. Except, this is not true because most Texans lack the money to have fled the storm and will have a hard time recovering financially after it has passed. In Texas, the deregulated electricity market fluctuates with demand, which will lead to a surge in prices when the power comes back on leaving people with low income with high utility bills that they will be unable to pay, cutting off their utilities for longer. Also, low-income minority communities often live near power plants which are known to release millions of pounds of pollutants after turning back on from storms, leaving people in the community exposed to harmful toxins.
Environmental racism is where BIPOC communities are more affected by climate change than white communities due to governmental policies like gentrification and redlining. What is happening in Texas is another example of environmental racism in the form of a natural disaster caused by climate change. Sadly, this will happen more and more frequently as climate change continues. What we can do to help is bring light to these issues and donate to relief efforts that are assisting low-income families in Texas.