November 26, 2024
When Hurricane Beryl swept through southeast Texas on July 8, its damaging 80-mile-per-hour winds took down thousands of trees and knocked out much of the electricity system. More than 2.6 million Texas power customers went without electricity for days in …
August 1, 2024
When a spate of wildfires tore across the Texas Panhandle in February and scorched 20,000 acres of Craig Cowden’s ranch near Skellytown, he decided he had had enough. Cowden took on a second unofficial job: looking for possible fire hazards …
July 19, 2024
It’s become a familiar cycle: A powerful storm sweeps through a swath of Texas and takes the electric system down in its grip. Trees might bend and topple, crashing down onto a power pole. Sometimes the weight of ice pulls …
June 20, 2024
The state’s main electric grid operator has sharply increased its prediction for how much power demand will increase in coming years. If it’s accurate, the state would need to be able to provide nearly double the amount of power within …
May 21, 2024
HARRIS COUNTY — After the floodwaters earlier this month just about swallowed two of the six homes that 60-year-old Tom Madigan owns on the San Jacinto River, he didn’t think twice about whether to fix them. He hired people to …
March 8, 2024
Before it burned to a pile of ashes, Melanie McQuiddy’s house on the outskirts of Canadian was her family’s home base. Her daughter and grandchildren flocked there for holidays. At Christmastime, she put a tree in every room and transformed …