Cost/benefit analysis. There's only so much you can prepare for before any further improvement becomes unreasonably expensive. And sometimes exceptional circumstances happen. It's not like we didn't have cities/areas without heating here in Germany in the past weeks as well, when heating plants failed.
But what happend to Texas would be comparable to a whole "state" like Bavaria, loosing all heating and power. And if that happend, I am sure there would be some heads rolling and a lot of people asking, how did that happen? And why did it happen? And can we do something to prevent it from happening? So it's not just like one city or local area. And even there you could always ask the same questions.
What happend in Texas has reasons and I think it would be wrong to believe that there is absolutely nothing you could do about it. They made some very drastic and deliberate choices over the years - decades really. Like the choice to have an electricity grid that's seperated from the rest of the country. To deregulate the infrastructure so companies have less incentive to modernise and prepare. The monopolisation by the energy sector leaving people with fewer choices by having a few large companies leading the market. Or as some put it.
Texas experienced the perfect storm.
If you do not go in and see >>>>crucial<<<<< infrastructure as something which should maybe not be seen as simple like a cost-benefit analysis but also from a human point of view, well then go on. But then also deal with the effect of people freezing and dying. And we see this attitude in many crucial areas not just electricity like health care as well. The thing is we're not talking about a luxury here. We're talking about infrastructure which is actually required to survive today. Is it really good to put a price tag on that and call it a day? I don't know. Terms like security of supply come from somewhere and can be even a matter of national security.
Because what you're (as a state/government) basically saying here as is, yeah well proper winterisation and improvements are optional and since this is to expensive we can't be arsed and leave the costs of preparing for it to the individual citizen. And if you do not have the resources and funds to it. Well. Tough luck motherfucker. Looks like you're freezing your ass off despite paying money for it.
Regardless of any cost/benefit analysis if we're talking about a crucial infrastrucuture which is not optional then you will ALWAYS pay for it in the end one way or another. Unless of course you see freezing your ass off and potentialy even dying as optional. I guess that's the ultimate price you could say. But hey if everything fails just "escape" to Cancun.
It just seems asinine to me to even suggest that the United Stations one of the richest and technologically most advanced nations on this planet can not figure out ways how to at least mitigate the effects of such a dissaster. They can send SUV sized robots to mars. Attack any country at any time at any place.
But when it comes to crucial infrastructure serving the public? Like water, health care, electricity? Well. Then I guess you're simply fucked. Because those things have to follow a "cost-benefit" analysis. And I think this is great because now you can actually put a price on a human life in Texas by looking how many died because of this crisis and how much the state saved in money. From there you can exprapolate what a life is worth to the Texas government.
