Texas Is Freezing Again. Did Ted Cruz Learn Anything?

AUSTIN, Texas — Much of North and Central Texas woke up Thursday morning to the rare sight of ice-encrusted trees, freezing rain and a dusting of crunchy, half-melted snow.

It’s an unnerving sight for many. Last winter, a similar pocket of frigid air barreled through Texas, crippling its underprepared energy grid and busting uninsulated water pipes.

This year’s cold snap seems less severe, and Texan utility companies are plodding their way through the winterization schemes mandated after last year, so the grid will probably be fine, a top energy official said earlier this week.

But then again, “no one can guarantee” that Texas won’t suffer blackouts again, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) clarified, and tens of thousands of Texans had lost power by noon Thursday.

Still, no Texan exemplifies this disdain for preparedness better than Sen. Ted Cruz (R), who tried to make his lack of readiness a virtue last year.

Cruz booked his family a flight to the Mexican resort town of Cancún. When the press found out and he came back, he said the freezing conditions required him to placate his children with a foreign vacation.

The excuse didn’t save him from a heaping helping of scorn for abandoning the state at an all-hands-on-deck moment.

“Like millions of Texans, our family lost heat and power too,” Cruz wrote in a press statement defending the choice. “We want our power back, our water on, and our homes warm.”

The fact that Cruz expected the state to guarantee, forever and without interruption, his supply of power and water should raise questions about the sincerity of his belief in small government.

It also demonstrated that Cruz:

• Didn’t seem to know that severe weather can interrupt utility service;
• Didn’t appear to store water ahead of a well-broadcast potential service interruption;
• Doesn’t seem to own a generator, even though he lives outside a city that experienced widespread power outages during a major hurricane four years prior;
• May not own warm clothes or a sleeping bag, or have anyone in his life willing to snuggle with him.

This is more than a slight lapse. Public service requires taking care of yourself so that you can devote your energy to meeting the needs of others. A couple of plastic jugs, a generator and a space heater could have solved his problem for less than $1,000 — a small fraction of the cost of flying the whole family to a Mexican resort on a moment’s notice.

Cruz’s office did not immediately respond to an email asking whether the senator has purchased or learned how to use water jugs or generators since last year.

Cruz’s apparent lack of preparedness last year was even more glaring considering that he is not a work-a-day American but a lawyer with an estimated net worth of $3.2 million. He is the kind of guy who can pay someone else to go pick up these items for him.

Some 246 people died during the last Texas energy grid debacle. Millions of others huddled in frigid homes for days, without secure supplies of food or potable water. Surge pricing stuck many with four-figure electric bills, even if they had spotty service.

Cruz had no reason to count himself among the victims. The fact that he did, and remained lighthearted enough to tweet a joke this week about Cancún plane ticket prices rising with inflation, makes it easier to understand why Texan infrastructure failed so hard last year and remains vulnerable today.