“Houston paper criticizes pols, regulators and company executives for putting the biggest city in the southwest through a multi-day blackout after a mild hurricane.”
Agree, and I’m not even sure it was a hurricane in Houston as it landed 50 miles south. I think the reasons people didn’t prepare was that it was earlier forecast much further south, near the Mexico border, it was a holiday weekend, and it wasn’t even a hurricane until just before it landed (it was a big hurricane a week earlier, but then weakened to a tropical storm).
But, overall, if this is how Houston holds up in a Cat 1 hurricane, one could only imagine what a REAL hurricane will do.
The one good thing is that at least the low-hanging fruit (meaning the weak trees and poles) were taken down and not much other damage, so a repeat of this hurricane, this year, should be a lot less damage...but they do need to get to work on the grid, because next time it may not be a Cat 1.
Well, this was a real Houston hurricane:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_Hurricane_Harvey_in_Texas