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Five years on from the winter storm that caused blackouts across much of the state of Texas, what’s been done to address the failures of the blackout? And is Austin and Texas ready for the next big winter test of the power grid? More about what has and has not happened since February 2021.
There’s an argument to be made that the lieutenant governor of Texas is the most influential elected official in the state. Republicans have held the position for nearly three decades. We’ll hear about the candidates running to represent Texas Democrats in this fall’s election.
What happens to love when memories fade away? And how can we possibly try to hang on them? Hear how one woman in Pflugerville is doing her best to keep love alive through music.
The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:08] Five years on from the winter storm that caused blackouts across much of the state of Texas. What has been done to address the failures of that blackout? And are we here in Austin ready for the next big winter test of the power grid? More about what has and has not happened since February of 2021. That is coming up on today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:27] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:32] Plus, there is an argument to be made that the Lieutenant Governor of Texas is the most influential elected official in the state. Republicans have held the position for nearly three decades. We’ll hear about the candidates running to represent Texas Democrats in this fall’s election and what happens to love when memories fade away. Hear how one woman in Pflugerville is doing her best to keep love alive through music. That’s coming up next here on Austin Signal. Howdy out there, you are tuned in to Austin Signal. It is Friday the 13th. I’m Jerry Keechanel. Five years ago, folks here in Austin got what at first seemed like a nice, fun dusting of snow, the kind that makes for a winter wonderland here in Texas. Here’s KUT’s Mo’s Bouchelle five years ago last night.
Mose Buchele [00:01:35] So this is the beginning. A couple weeks after the big blackout, I found this video in my phone. Well, it might be a historic winter storm here in Austin. It’s from the night before the power went out. When I found it, I didn’t even remember recording it. Just started down here. Or exactly who I was recording it for. I know I was really excited about the snow. I love this. But when I listen back, this sounds corny. I get chills because of this last thing I say right here. Big question for a lot of people right now is whether the electric grid’s gonna hold up.
Jerry Quijano [00:02:21] We didn’t know then about the coming blackouts that would throw the state into confusion and cause hundreds of deaths. On the five-year anniversary of that storm, we’re talking with Moe’s Bouchelle. Moe has been doing some special reporting for the Texas newsroom and has served for more than a decade as KUT’s energy and environment correspondent, and he hosts the podcast, The Disconnect Power, Politics, and the Texas Blackout. Moe, thank you for being with us. Pleasure, Jerry. Obviously now we’ve dealt with the repercussions of the storm, but at the time, how realistic was it that we might experience a blackout of that magnitude?
Mose Buchele [00:02:56] Nobody expected something that bad happening. I think that’s fair to say. There was in fact I think a fair amount of confidence in some of the years leading up to 21 that ERCOT had started to get a handle on some of its cold weather problems. And obviously that confidence was proven to be absolutely unfounded. But we had a much smaller kind of state outage, rolling outage blackout in 2011 that prompted some people to start thinking about this and prompted some kind of suggestions from federal regulators as well over how to protect the grid against cold weather. Clearly, those lessons weren’t learned as well as they thought they were. So when this massive storm rolled in, we were just knocked over.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:47] This is covered in the podcast that you did for KUT and KUTX studios, The Disconnect. I was listening back to the first episode this morning and you talk about sort of there being knowledge of what the problem was, but not as much being done to address the problem. Since the storm five years ago, what has been done to winterize the grid since
Mose Buchele [00:04:08] I think that the main thing that everyone points to are standards for essentially insulating power plants. A lot of things went wrong all at once during that blackout, but one of those things was that the gas power plants and other energy generators too just weren’t prepared for that level of cold and also the freezing rain, and so they literally broke down. After 21, the state finally created regulations to prepare power plants for cold weather. That alone is like one of the most demonstrable kind of things that you can point to and say uh… We have done this now and so power plants are supposed to be better better equipped for for freezing weather they are inspected to make sure that they’re preparing for freezing whether that is one thing you can point to say yes texas has done this
Jerry Quijano [00:04:56] And in the five years since the storm, have we seen a real test of it that would be comparable to what happened in 2021?
Mose Buchele [00:05:02] Yeah, I have a story about this just up on the web today. We haven’t, we’ve seen big freezes, we’ve see big winter storms. And what we see every time it happens is everybody gets really panicked, right? We all worry, I think understandably after what people went through in 21. But when you compare any of these big storms to the big winter storm in 21, none of the big storms we’ve since then have come close to the magnitude of that storm. And I’m talking in terms of how cold it got, how long it stayed that cold, just the massive amounts of freezing precipitation. And also importantly for the power grid, the size. I mean, this thing covered the entire state of Texas for days. That means that the entire State was trying to draw power off the grid all at once. And when that happens, that’s when you have problems on the energy system because everybody wants power and well, hey, what’s happening? The power plants are shutting down. That was the formula that led to this disaster.
Jerry Quijano [00:06:02] And as we learn through this disaster, this grid is uniquely Texan and its connections and its capabilities. Is this problem though of the potential for blackouts, is that uniquely Texin?
Mose Buchele [00:06:14] Uh… So you know one thing that i i i find interesting is that there seems to be a kind of growing anxiety over power grids across the country and uh… In a way texas may have gotten there first uh… We are seeing uh… Increasingly urgent warnings from that national regulators uh… And and people that watch power grits saying that that regional grids are aging, there is not a lot of excess capacity energy that might be drawn on in an emergency, in a weather emergency, and there are all these weaknesses that they have identified that they recommend should be fixed. Here I’m actually thinking specifically of a recent report out from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation saying that many grids across the country are at high of having energy shortages in extreme events. And the question is, what do you do about it?
Jerry Quijano [00:07:09] Moza, I mentioned the podcast that you did for KUT and KUTx, the disconnect for a listener who might not be familiar. What do you cover in that podcast?
Mose Buchele [00:07:16] I mean, we try to look at everything, the world of energy systems and power grids is a complicated one. It’s also a very political one, especially in Texas, I think I could say. And we tell the history of the Texas grid. Why do we have our own power grid? Something a lot of people say should be changed. We should link up with other grids. Why is the grid so dependent on natural gas here and has been for much longer than a lot of the rest of the country? Things like that and so, and much more. And so we tell that story to try to explain how this just this massive disaster could could happen. In many ways, a human cause disaster could happen in the energy capital of the country in Texas. And it’s still it still resonates today because people you know people like like we said people still think about this people are still worried. And the reality is, we have not had a storm like that since. And so… Uh, you talk to analysts and they’ll say, you know, some things have been improved. Uh, other things have not improved. There are new challenges and we won’t really know where we stand until we get another storm of that magnitude. And no one wants that to happen.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:33] We have been speaking with Moe’s Boo Shell. He is the host of The Disconnect. He is KUT’s energy and environment reporter and he has been doing some special reporting for the Texas Newsroom. We’re gonna have a link to all of his reporting in the show notes for today’s podcast and you can find more at kut.org slash signal. Moe, thank you. Thank you, Jerry. The lieutenant governor of Texas is arguably the most influential elected official in the state. It’s also a job that’s been held by Republicans since 1999, most recently by Dan Patrick, who’s been in the role for 11 years. But Democrats are hoping to give Patrick a run for his money this November. First though, Texas Dems have to decide who they’re gonna put on the ballot against him. Three candidates are vying for the nomination in the party’s primary next month. The Texas newsroom’s Blaise Ganey introduces us to them and explains why the spot is highly sought after.
Blaise Gainey [00:09:34] In Texas, the lieutenant governor’s job includes presiding over the state Senate, selecting key committee leadership roles, even deciding which bills live or die. In all, the role here wields an almost unusual amount of authority. Brandon Rottinghouse is a University of Houston political scientist.
Brandon Rottinghouse [00:09:50] The Texas Lieutenant Governor is one of the top five most powerful in the country.
Blaise Gainey [00:09:54] And that power has only expanded since Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick took office. Patrick’s iron-fisted approach has shaped some of the state’s most contentious recent policy fights, from school vouchers to gambling. Now, three Democrats are fighting to be the one on the ballot against the incumbent Republican later this year, software company manager Courtney Head, Marcos Velez, a labor advocate, and state representative Vicki Goodwin.
Vikki Goodwin [00:10:18] We’ve had 30 years of Republican leadership, and it’s time for change.
Blaise Gainey [00:10:22] Since 2019, Goodwins represented her Austin area district in the Texas House, where she serves on the Appropriations Committee. Under Republicans, she says public schools are suffering.
Vikki Goodwin [00:10:32] I want to make sure that we’re funding them appropriately, that we are not diverting our public tax dollars to private schools, that were supporting our teachers, our students, and a system that serves over 90% of the kids in Texas.
Blaise Gainey [00:10:45] She also argues the state’s current leaders aren’t listening to the public, pointing to Dan Patrick’s push last year to ban THC products.
Vikki Goodwin [00:10:53] We had over 600 people come to the Capitol to testify against the ban on THC, and you don’t see that very often, you don’t those numbers.
Blaise Gainey [00:11:01] Goodwin says she supports fully legalizing marijuana.
Vikki Goodwin [00:11:04] We ought to treat marijuana, THC, what have you, the same as we do alcohol.
Blaise Gainey [00:11:08] That’s something she and fellow candidate Marcos Velez agree on. Velez grew up outside of Houston and worked in oil refineries, eventually organizing around workplace safety. He says affordability, especially for young workers, is what pushed him to run for
Marcos Velez [00:11:23] I look at my son now, college-educated, he delivers pizzas, and I’m not knocking my son. What I’m saying is, even with $100,000 education, you can’t secure $100k a year job.
Blaise Gainey [00:11:36] Wages haven’t kept pace with productivity in that Texas isn’t prioritizing policies that help everyday workers. Besides marijuana, he supports legalizing gambling.
Marcos Velez [00:11:46] There’s all these different things that we could legalize, we could regulate, and we can use the profit from those things to bring people’s property taxes down.
Blaise Gainey [00:11:54] The high property taxes in Texas is a goal shared by Democrats and Republicans, and Dan Patrick has been a main driver for it at the Capitol. But despite big swings by Texas lawmakers, many homeowners here say it’s not enough. Velez also points to Patrick’s stance against gambling, something Velez does not agree with.
Marcos Velez [00:12:11] Lez says ignores reality.
Blaise Gainey [00:12:23] The third Democrat in the race, Courtney Head, is a San Antonio-based software professional. She also supports legalizing cannabis, plus expanding Medicaid, repealing school vouchers, and investing in high-speed rail. But all three face a major obstacle, money. Patrick reports he has roughly $38 million on hand for his re-election campaign. By comparison, Goodwin has about 159,000, Velez around 46,000 and Head just a few hundred dollars. Which Roddinghouse says will make it tough to compete.
Brandon Rottinghouse [00:12:54] Of the ability to advertise and to convince people that you have a better policy set than your opponent, then it’s just hard for them to really understand why you’re running and to know in fact that you’re running
Blaise Gainey [00:13:07] Kendall Scudder, chair of the Texas Democratic Party, remains optimistic on the lieutenant governor’s race.
Brandon Rottinghouse [00:13:12] Republicans are always going to have more money than us. That’s just life. They are the party of the billionaires and we are the party of people.
Blaise Gainey [00:13:19] In the recent win for Democrats in Texas Senate District 9 is giving the party hope. In that special election, the Republican candidate spent $2 million more than the Democratic fictor. Scudder says that shows two things. Voters aren’t happy. And number two, there’s a ceiling to what it.
Brandon Rottinghouse [00:13:35] Packs this money has.
Blaise Gainey [00:13:37] Meanwhile, the incumbent appears unconcerned. Patrick’s already rolling out his plans for the next legislative session in 2027, which include more property tax cuts. Early voting for the party primaries in Texas begins February 17th. I’m Blaise Ganey in Austin.
Jerry Quijano [00:13:52] And we’ll have more Austin Signal for you after this break. Happy Friday, this is Austin Signal. Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, so today we’ve got a love story for ya. It’s about a couple in Pflugerville, Clyde and Cassandra Loftus. This is a story about what happens when memories fade and how to hold on to them. Here is KUT’s Matt Largie.
Matt Largey [00:14:21] The story begins with a workplace romance. Do you remember the first time that you met Cassandra?
Clyde Loftus [00:14:27] This is Clyde. Yeah, yeah. She was walking down.
Cassandra Loftus [00:14:34] You came into the office and then.
Clyde Loftus [00:14:35] And then the office, yeah, and then what? My brain’s gone.
Matt Largey [00:14:40] This is Cassandra.
Cassandra Loftus [00:14:41] Yeah, we just met like co-workers, you know, oh this is Clyde, this is Cass, I…
Matt Largey [00:14:46] Cassandra and Clyde eventually started dating. Cassandra knew he was a keeper. He was.
Cassandra Loftus [00:14:52] Brilliant, very, very smart man, and funny, and those beautiful blue eyes, and his kindness and his generosity. I got to see all of that and wanted to have that.
Matt Largey [00:15:09] They got married in 2009. It was a small ceremony. Now, there’s something you need to know. Clyde had been playing guitar since he was eight years old.
Clyde Loftus [00:15:18] My dad had played guitars and uncles, and then I got into really hard metal and stuff.
Matt Largey [00:15:27] Clyde had always had dreams of being a rock star. Brought his guitar with him when he served in the Navy. Started bands with his friends. The music was part of him.
Clyde Loftus [00:15:36] I’m not bragging, but I can play like hell.
Matt Largey [00:15:40] So when it came time for Cassandra and Clyde’s first dance, Clyde had a song, their own original song, written and performed by Clyde.
Cassandra Loftus [00:15:51] Yeah, he had a song recorded for our first dance and the most amazing, wonderful thing.
Matt Largey [00:16:01] So they were married, they made a life together, and for a few years there things were pretty good. They had their struggles, but nothing out of the ordinary.
Cassandra Loftus [00:16:09] We didn’t go into this relationship thinking, you know, everything was gonna be all beautiful and rainbows. It’d be nice, but it’s not reality.
Matt Largey [00:16:22] Around 2018, nine years into their marriage, Cassandra started to see changes in Clyde. She’d tell him something or ask him to do something and he wouldn’t remember. She chalked it up to typical husband not listening to his wife kind of stuff.
Cassandra Loftus [00:16:36] But a co-worker of ours came up to me and said, yeah, there’s something off about Clyde. He’s forgetting his tasks. He’s getting agitated at people.
Matt Largey [00:16:44] And things kept getting worse.
Cassandra Loftus [00:16:46] I mean, he would come to me at work and ask me to help him with his work.
Matt Largey [00:16:49] They knew something was wrong, but not exactly what. He had to quit his job. There were doctor’s appointments, so many appointments. Finally, they got a diagnosis. It was dementia, specifically Alzheimer’s.
Clyde Loftus [00:17:03] I understand it, and I’m not mad. Now, at first it was. With her and me, there’s nothing, no, there is no way.
Matt Largey [00:17:19] Way to get hurt, you know. They did clinical trials, but nothing worked. Clyde has lost a lot of what made him who he is. His math skills, language skills, the words just won’t come out much of the time. I’m a kid.
Cassandra Loftus [00:17:37] I’m a kid.
Matt Largey [00:17:39] He even stopped playing music.
Cassandra Loftus [00:17:41] It’s got to be so hard to be in his head, to not be able to just do what you normally do and be who you really are. I mean, he looks at a lot of pictures of himself and he thinks about all of the people he has been, all of men he has be, and he’s just trying to hold on to who he was, you know, and it’s hard.
Matt Largey [00:18:03] But there is a version of Clyde that hangs on. Now this is pretty cool. He shows me into his home studio. He’s so excited to show me. It’s acoustic and electric. There are a half dozen guitars hanging on the walls and on stands. Four years after he put his music down, he picked it back up.
Cassandra Loftus [00:18:31] I love hearing him play, but it’s kind of bittersweet because I was there when he was at his peak and he was so amazing. So it’s hard to see him with these smaller bits, but he’s just so happy that he’s playing.
Matt Largey [00:18:50] Watching him play last July, Clyde is in the zone. He looks more confident than I’ve seen so far, but he also seems a little unsteady.
Cassandra Loftus [00:18:58] As you see the changes in someone’s dementia, you are mourning losses of small things every day. And to see him get up and say, I’m going in the studio or stay up all night, screaming those speakers like crazy is just pure joy. It makes my heart happy.
Matt Largey [00:19:22] Clyde says coming back to the guitar has been therapeutic for him, but getting started again wasn’t easy.
Clyde Loftus [00:19:30] I don’t want to be crude, but I just said, you know what? F*** that. Do it. You can do it.
Speaker 11 [00:19:38] You know? If I get bored, I go into that studio and make some noise.
Clyde Loftus [00:19:59] I don’t think, I just let it go. It’s in me, you know it is.
Matt Largey [00:20:25] It’s six months later now. I come back in January, 2026. When I get inside, I can tell instantly that something is different. Cassandra seems tired. Clyde is quieter. Things have gotten worse.
Cassandra Loftus [00:20:38] Some days he’s almost nonverbal. Um, somebody else had to tell me that because your brain fills in the blanks of the conversation. I feel like we’ve been having like amazing intellectual conversations, but he says one or two words.
Matt Largey [00:20:54] Clyde’s memory is declining fast. Sometimes he looks Cassandra right in the face and asks where she is. She tells him she’s right there. She’s not going anywhere.
Cassandra Loftus [00:21:04] He asked me to marry him over and over and over again and I always say yes, right babe? Whenever you ask me to marry you, I say yes, don’t I?
Matt Largey [00:21:16] He hardly touches his guitars anymore. A while back, Clyde told Cassandra he wanted them to write a song together.
Cassandra Loftus [00:21:27] Clyde just said, hey, let’s, we need to write a love song. We need to ride our story.
Matt Largey [00:21:32] Like a sequel to the song he wrote for Cassandra for their first dance as a married couple, but this time with words. Clyde would provide the music, or at least a recording he made years ago, the music we’re hearing now. Cassandra would write and sing the lyrics. She agonized over the words, wrote a draft and tossed it out. It was all wrong.
Cassandra Loftus [00:21:52] It was purely just my grieving. And then it developed into, okay, so how did we meet? How did we build our life together?
Matt Largey [00:22:02] Three more drafts later, she thinks she’s found the words, but then she’s also not sure that it’ll ever be finished. It’s called We Are So Lucky.
Clyde Loftus [00:22:12] Were you, were you And I was me and we were so lucky
Matt Largey [00:22:24] Does it sound perfect? No, Cassandra is the first to admit that. But that, of course, is not the point. Like any love story, this love song has its flaws. The point of a love song is to sound real, to sound like you mean the words. But even when the person they’re meant for doesn’t always recognize you, you still feel it.
Clyde Loftus [00:22:48] Remember us in your dreams tonight Remember me in the morning We are Cass and Clyde And we will be until the end of time We are so lucky
Matt Largey [00:23:20] We should all be so lucky.
Clyde Loftus [00:23:21] I love you, bubba!
Matt Largey [00:23:25] In Pflugerville, I’m Matt Largi.
Jerry Quijano [00:23:33] That is it for this week here on Austin Signal. Thank you for spending some time with us. You can find more from this week of shows at kut.org slash signal. Kristen Cabrera is our managing producer and Rayna Sevilla is our technical director. I’m your host, Jerry Kikano. We will be back with you on Monday. Have a lovely weekend.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
