This is one of the things I find quite surreal about the US. How is it not government's responsibility to ensure citizens have access to basic utilities?
I think there is a difference between "access to basic utilities" and the power is down because a power station caught on fire for example.
Access to basic utilities is provided, but uptime is not 100% and never will be. And nobody can expect them to be, if you have a life threatening issue which requires 24/7 power, you should have a backup like a generator that automatically kicks on for your life providing machine, and maybe even a third backup. Same as if you host something that needs 3 9s of uptime, you have a primary host and a backup host or region or what ever.
> Access to basic utilities is provided, but uptime is not 100% and never will be.
The issue in Texas isn't that power was out for a few hours, the issue is it was out for several days. This should be unacceptable and it is absolutely reasonable to expect a rich, developed nation to guarantee this does not happen. Especially in freak weather events that are going to increase in frequency in the future due to climate change.
Even within a neoliberal country it's entirely within the realms of the government to force corporations that maintain infrastructure to comply with basic service guarantees or at least threaten to nationalize the business, you can privatize it later again. This is critical infrastructure. I know people dying doesn't matter to libs, but this cost other corporations in Texas a lot of money too. How can you have a free market where the basic infrastructure is this unreliable.
I mean this is certainly because it's Texas, I get power outages for multiple days every year. As does most countries where it snows. Some years I get power outages for multiple days every month.
I believe the issue is because Texas thinks it does not snow so they avoid any emergency procedures for snow. Well it does now, so they should prepare for that, as unlikely as it is.
> if you have a life threatening issue which requires 24/7 power, you should have a backup like a generator that automatically kicks on for your life providing machine, and maybe even a third backup.
The problem until recently was that gas generators are, in many places, banned. Apartments are a no go, many condos, and even some house HOAs do not allow them.
Now, lithium backup packs are a thing. However, for any extended needs you will probably also want solar panels or some other way to recharge, and you may need a second battery so that you can recharge one while using the other (the units I purchased do not allow discharge while charging)
I live in Texas. While my house was being built, I spent 8 months in an apartment complex to save money (it was just before housing prices and rent skyrocketed across the nation) and I gained a whole new appreciation and perspective over what "paycheck to paycheck" meant for people. I always assumed it meant they got what I thought were necessities but had no spare money. It was eye opening making friends in that apartment complex because month to month for them meant they often went a paycheck with something otherwise critical deferred to another paycheck. They were mastercraftsmen in robbing peter to pay paul, so to speak.
I understand your sentiment of investing in some life saving gear that is cheap for its great value. But I would encourage you to widen your perspective and understand that when faced with the decision to pay for groceries and car insurance to ensure one can keep working, or put back money for a gas generator for something used every 4 years, they're going to pick no interruption to groceries and car insurance. And rightly so.
If you're of the type that promotes larger government, you need to write to your government to encourage them to provide this equipment out of their taxes. If you're of the type that promotes less government, you need to write to your government to encourage them to tax less and/or provide tangible tax breaks for this equipment a la solar.
Yes, they could come with the money but it’d require sacrifices elsewhere. More importantly, however, that’s like saying the cost of car ownership is the purchase price of the vehicle: you don’t just buy a generator once and leave it untouched for decades - you need to have somewhere safe to operate it, store clean fuel safely, test it regularly, have your electrical system modified to allow a switchover, make sure to winterize in most of the country, etc. Every year people have fires, shorts, carbon monoxide poisoning, or unexpected outages from some detail of that going wrong.
Now, consider who tends to have the greatest problems when the power goes out for an extended period of time: the elderly, poor, and disabled people who have the most challenges doing that. Saying that everyone should maintain their own personal auxiliary power supply so the energy providers can be more profitable is the same as saying that it’s okay for those people to die because they aren’t rich enough.
> you need to have somewhere safe to operate it, store clean fuel safely, test it regularly, have your electrical system modified to allow a switchover, make sure to winterize in most of the country, etc.
It's bad, but not quite that bad. The person who suggested a generator was talking about the case of people who have some life threatening condition that they need electricity to survive.
In most cases that will mean they only have to use the generator to power a small number of things. In that case they don't need to modify their electrical system. They can power their things from the generator's normal household outlets. They just need long enough extension cords to get from wherever they have to put the generator to their life saving devices.
They'd probably only need a small generator, maybe a couple thousand watts. Those are light enough (20ish kg) and small enough (small suitcase sized) that it should be easy to store indoors when not actually in use. That should get rid of most of the hassle of winterizing.
Go for a propane generator instead of a gasoline generator. They produce much less dangerous emissions than gasoline generators so should be easier to find someplace safe to operate. Also stored propane does not go bad over time, like stored gasoline, so you don't need to rotate your fuel. Propane tanks are also safer than gasoline tanks so propane is easier to store safely.
Yeah, it’s definitely not impossible but my point was that the people most a risk during a power outage also are least likely to be able to deal with that. If you’re a senior citizen living on a tight income, it’s one more thing to pay someone else to help with.
Yeah, it’s kinda like healthcare, just put out the hat when you get sick and all your friends and family kick in, right? There are actually a lot of people who think that’s a viable solution.
But wait, it’s not a viable solution for everyone. So we build organizations which formalize this commitment in the form of a monthly payment.
After a while this becomes predatory and sharp, and the need emerges for this to be formally socialized as a part of living in society.
Sure, that works for many people. There were still hundreds of Texans who that fatally did not work for just the 2021 failure alone. Public policy generally works best if you focus on the people who don’t have the reserves & support network to absorb a failure.
You've got replies telling you that you're wrong about what people can afford. I'll tell you that you're wrong about what people should be prioritizing:
Millions of Texans lost power, only a few hundred died. For most people losing power really isn't a big deal they need to be super concerned about. They get more blankets out of the closet and carry on just fine. People vulnerable to freezing to death in a few days without power are a small minority; it's pretty much just very elderly people without much sense living alone and infants with very neglectful parents.
Kinda? Fire service is not provided everywhere. Some cities you have to hire your own / purchase a plan. Granted a lot of cities just factor it into taxes but it's not a mandate to provide.
The "most" of the US fire service is just provided everywhere.
But the US is also a very big place with big empty spaces filled with very small communities. Along with strong devolution in governance, there are "some" very remote communities where the population cannot support a permanent local fire service and relies on locally organized volunteers. They can choose to fund that in a variety of ways, by taxes/subs combination. And of course you may live so remotely that even that is not realistic.
I suspect that the list of countries in which 100% of the territory, with no exceptions, will have a fire brigade arrive in time to do anything productive is a lot smaller than you think it is.
Kind of: none of this was agreed to by a majority of the people – the entire United States law was originally drafted by white male landowners, and Texas has relied heavily on creative policies around voting since the civil rights era banned outright prevention - and over time these principles reinterpretation over time by judges who usually are not popularly elected. That puts us in an interesting situation where nobody voted directly for a position most voters wouldn’t agree to but there isn’t a single villain to vote out or a simple ballot initiative to put in the next election. If you asked whether there should be no obligation to provide power, for anyone to show up when you call 9/11, etc. most people would say that’s wrong but have a daunting path to change it.
It still true in youre electing people who have positions, options and predispositions that are, for all intents and purposes, known by the electors. Yes, you could argue that individuals running for election have hidden agendas, but you can apply simple principals to most individuals running for office and assume their intentions/actions/etc.
This is how everything here works. People who get involved enough to learn how something works stay winning and people who think they do get burned.
Same as insurance, credit cards, real estate, investing, the justice system, health, education, pretty much everything. Also, every one of these potential pitfalls has a zillion dollar budget hyper focused on tricking you through advertising.
