Angela Frederick's new book 'Disabled Power' explores the severe challenges faced by disabled individuals during the 2021 Winter Storm Uri in Texas. It highlights how policy failures and grid deregulation left many without essential power, exacerbating health risks. Frederick calls for centering disability in disaster planning to prevent future tragedies.
In February 2021, Winter Storm Uri crippled Texas's isolated power grid, leaving millions without electricity amid freezing temperatures. University of Texas at El Paso professor Angela Frederick documents these events in her book Disabled Power, focusing on the disproportionate impact on disabled and chronically ill people.
One story involves Rita, an Indigenous woman with severe mental illness and congestive heart failure, who survived in a tent on Austin's streets using camp stoves and a propane heater. At least six unhoused people did not survive the ordeal. Frederick notes, “Their worlds shrunk in ways specific to disability, and they often negotiated disability-related constraints as they strategized to survive.”
The crisis stemmed from Texas's deregulation of its grid in the 1990s and early 2000s, influenced by Enron, which treated electricity as a commodity rather than a public good. This ideology of rugged individualism contributed to the failures, a pattern Frederick sees as a warning for the nation.
Disabled individuals fall into two vulnerable categories: power-vulnerable, who face worsened pain or mobility loss from spoiled medications or failed assistive devices, and power-dependent, who rely on electric medical equipment for survival. Many registered as power-dependent with utilities or the State of Texas Emergency Assistance Registry (STEAR), obtaining doctor's certifications annually, yet received no protection during rolling blackouts. “People really felt betrayed by this,” Frederick observes, emphasizing that individual preparedness cannot substitute for robust public policies.
Frederick advocates for 'care webs'—reciprocal networks among disabled and nondisabled people—that emerged spontaneously during the storm, such as Deaf communities distributing water and Blind individuals supporting each other. To mitigate future risks amid worsening climate events, she urges treating power infrastructure as a protected public good and integrating disabled perspectives into resilience planning, benefiting entire communities.
