A perfect storm
Light a candle for the kids
The freeze in Texas exposes America’s infrastructural failings
When it rains, it pours, and when it snows, the lights turn off. Or so it goes in Texas. After a winter storm pummelled the Lone Star State with record snowfall and the lowest temperatures in more than 30 years, millions were left without electricity and heat. At the worst moment on February 16th, 4.5m Texan households were cut off from power, as providers were overloaded with demand and tried to shuffle access to electricity so the entire grid did not collapse.
pummel 意思是“连续猛击”cut off 是个动词词组，表示“切断（供应）”shuffle 意思是“变换位置”；shuffle 还有一个意思表示“洗（牌）”
Whole skylines, including Dallas’s, went dark to conserve power. Some Texans braved the snowy roads to check into the few hotels with remaining rooms, only for the hotels’ power to go off as they arrived. Others donned skiwear and remained inside, hoping the lights and heat would come back on. Across the state, what were supposed to be “rolling” blackouts lasted for days. It is still too soon to quantify the devastation. More than 20 people have died in motor accidents, from fires lit for warmth and from carbon-monoxide poisoning after using cars to get warm. The storm has also halted deliveries of covid-19 vaccines and may prevent around 1m vaccinations from happening this week. Several retail electricity providers are likely to go bankrupt, after being hit with surging wholesale power prices.
conserve 意思是“ 节省；节约”，在这里类似于save；名词是conservation
brave 用作动词，意思是“勇敢面对”go off 表示“(电器设备）停止运转”don 意思是“ 披上；穿上”，注意过去式和过去分词要双写nrolling 指“周而复始的”，动词是roll
blackout 意思是“断电；停电”carbon-monoxide 指“一氧化碳”
halt 意思是“（使）停止，停下”，既可作动词，又可作名词。词组 bring...to a grinding halt 表示“使渐渐停下来”
bankrupt 指“破产；倒闭”，常用于 go bankruptwholesale 表示“批发的”
Other states, including Tennessee, were also covered in snow, but Texas got the lion’s share and ground to a halt. Texans are rightly furious that residents of America’s energy capital cannot count on reliable power. Everyone is asking why.
The short answer is that the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which operates the grid, did not properly forecast the demand for energy as a result of the storm. Some say that this was nearly impossible to predict, but there were warnings of the severity of the coming weather in the preceding week, and ERCOT’s projections were notably short. Brownouts last summer had already demonstrated the grid’s lack of excess capacity, says George O’Leary of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co (TPH), an energy investment bank.
the lion's share 是个习语，意思是“最大（或最好）的一份”ground 在这里是动词grind的过去式，grind to a halt 意思是“慢慢停下来”furious 意思是“狂怒的；暴怒的”，名词是fury
count on 是个动词词组，意思是“指望;依靠”preceding 意思是“在先的，先前的”，动词precede意为“ 在…之前发生（或出现）；先于”projection 表示“预测；推断”，它还有“投影”的意思
brownout 指“局部暂时限制用电”，有点类似于blackout
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