A resident of Corpus Christi, a seaside city in cold-baffled Texas, has filed a lawsuit against the southwestern US state's electricity grid regulator and power provider, claiming that their failure to ensure secure supplies amid the non-unheard-of cold winter resulted in damages to his property
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 20th February, 2021) A resident of Corpus Christi, a seaside city in cold-baffled Texas, has filed a lawsuit against the southwestern US state's electricity grid regulator and power provider, claiming that their failure to ensure secure supplies amid the non-unheard-of cold winter resulted in damages to his property.
This past Monday, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCoT) ordered for rolling blackouts, leaving hundreds of thousands of households free to improvise for ways how to keep warm through an exceptionally cold weather.
"Defendant ERCoT's negligent acts and omissions ... caused caused Plaintiff to lose power at his home and proximately caused his injuries and damages," Donald McCarley said in the suit, dated February 19.
The rotating blackouts "took, damaged, or destroyed" McCarley's property without adequate compensation," while the regulator itself has failed its duty to "take reasonable care in estimating and planning the amount of power that would be required in the Winter 2021 season."
A similar "negligence and gross negligence" charge was addressed to the provider, American Electric Power, for failing to "exercise reasonable care in maintaining and updating its generation, transmission, and distribution facilities in order to prevent cold-weather failures like those experienced in February 2021."
"This cold weather event and its effects on the Texas energy grid were neither unprecedented, nor unexpected, nor unforeseen," the suit read, citing "similar cold weather events" in 2090 and 2011 and "disruptive cold weather events" in 1983, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2018.
McCarley is now seeking damages in the amount "sufficient to punish" the defendants and "deter others from engaging in similar conduct."
Snowfalls, sub zero temperatures and biting wind continue to test the United States' southwest and Texas, in particular, for a few weeks now. Earlier on Saturday, Texas Commission on Environmental Quality spokesperson Tiffany Young told Sputnik that nearly 15 million local residents were affected by the cold-caused disruption of water supply systems. Tens of thousands of households are still without electricity.
