Source: Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts
Jose Rodriguez/THE RIDER GRAPHIC
Remembering Winter Storm Uri Through the Lens of Community Resilience, an event focusing on the disaster, will take place from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Liberal Arts Building North Room 1.101 on the Edinburg campus.
The conversation will be hosted by the Center for Community Resilience Research, Innovation, and Advocacy, the Office for Sustainability, and the Office of Emergency Management, and will feature numerous guest speakers who will provide insights on their research about Winter Storm Uri and the effects it had on certain communities and to reflect, according to UTRGV faculty members.
“Millions of Texans lost power. Snow and ice paired with ultra-low temperatures caused widespread road closures and dangerous travel conditions. State emergency management leaders activated warming centers in communities across Texas and numerous personnel were deployed to assist stranded motorists and conduct welfare checks. Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for all 254 counties in the state,” according to the Texas Division of Emergency Management website.
Winter Storm Uri hit the Rio Grande Valley and Texas heavily in February 2021.
“The Rio Grande Valley faced one of the most extreme climate events,” said Cecilio Ortiz-Garcia, Houston endowed chair for Civic Engagement and a UTRGV professor in the School of Political Science, Public Affairs, Legal and Security Studies.
According to Ortiz-Garcia, the event raises the opportunity to have more conversations on how the winter storm impacted the Valley and, if they have heard stories such as how senior citizens, people that need medical devices and those with upper respiratory illnesses, were impacted.
“We try to explain disasters in social terms, not necessarily in natural terms,” said Marla Perez-Lugo, a sociology and disaster studies professor. “That, it was a good idea to address winter storm in a sociological way.”
She said the goal of the event is to highlight the vulnerable populations during the storm.
“We are departing from the premise that disasters are not natural so they are created by decision making processes like policies and power relations,” Perez-Lugo said.
The frigid and abrupt temperature during the winter storm had an impact on the electrical systems which Texas did not take lightly because the state architecture and culture are not accustomed to such temperature, according to Ortiz-Garcia.
“To understand the vulnerabilities of a place to extreme climate conditions, you not only have to understand the physical aspects of the place, you need to understand the history,” he said.
Ortiz-Garcia said most homes in the Valley do not have fireplaces and the construction is tailored to more moderate tropical temperatures so, when freezes coupled with failure of infrastructure occur bad things happen.
Perez-Lugo said almost 700 people lost their lives to something the area could prepare better for.
She said communities in the Valley were left without electricity for weeks.
“The problem was that most of the blackouts occurred in low-income, poor communities,” Perez-Lugo said. “… El Valle and the poorest counties were the ones who bear the [burden] of the problems with the electrical system.”
She said there is no prevention for a storm, but the public can attempt to decrease vulnerability.
