Texas to reform energy grid in response to fatal blackouts caused by severe winter storms

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed bills to reform the state's power grid in response to the disastrous energy crisis that resulted from a pair of severe winter storms.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has signed a bill to reform the state's power grid and how it's operated in response to the disastrous energy crisis caused by severe winter storms. More than 4 million people in the state were left without heat and potable water in February after back-to-back storms buried residents in snow and regional temperatures plummeted. It took days for power to be restored, and more than 100 people died because of subsequent blackouts. The power systems were not designed to withstand extreme cold, which was the "central cause" of the failures, Bill Magness, former CEO of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which oversees the state's electric grid, told ABC News in February. In addition, there were outages because power generation from coal, natural gas, wind and solar sources fell below expected output levels due to the weather. The new legislation includes "comprehensive reforms to fix all of the flaws that led to the power failure," Abbott said Tuesday during the signing, including directives for power companies and some natural gas companies to upgrade facilities and weatherize the power grid, and a requirement for regulators to create an emergency alert system for when inclement weather and power outages are imminent.