The single mother of an 11-year-old boy who died during a prolonged blackout at his Texas home in the midst of a freezing winter storm is suing the companies responsible for the flow of energy through the state’s power grid for $ 100 million in damages.
Cristian Pineda, 11, was found unresponsive in his bed on Tuesday after spending the night with his 3-year-old brother in an effort to stay warm, according to Maria Pineda’s lawsuit. Cristian’s mother called 911 after realizing that he was not responding and tried to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but was unable to revive the boy, the lawsuit said.
Now Maria Pineda is suing the Texas Electric Reliability Council and Entergy, claiming that serious negligence led to the boy’s death and that Cristian died because his “energy supplier made decisions based on profits”.
“This boy saw the snow for the first time on Monday and died on Tuesday,” Tony Buzbee, the lawyer representing Cristian’s mother, told NBC News on Monday.
An autopsy is still pending, according to the Conroe police department, about 40 miles north of Houston. The results could take 60 to 90 days, the police said.
Cristian showed no signs of medical problems and had no underlying problems before his death, said Buzbee, describing him as a healthy and active preadolescent. Dozens of people died across the country as a result of the winter storm, with at least 22 in Texas as of Saturday.
Although the Pineda family, like many other Texans, had a roof over their heads, their circumstances were comparable to that of a homeless during the storm, Buzbee said.
“Misinformation is probably what drives people the most crazy, and it certainly makes me very angry, because they lied about us, you know, we will have continuous blackouts,” said Buzbee. “That is not what happened. It was a total blackout, with no end in sight. “
The lawsuit filed on Saturday alleges that ERCOT and Entergy have told consumers continuous or temporary blackouts, but have not warned that there could be longer blackouts, which would last for days. Without warning, consumers were unprepared to face several days without power, the lawsuit claims.
It also claims that Entergy “chose to turn off the power for those who were most vulnerable to the cold” because it did not prioritize areas where residents were most vulnerable to the cold when faced with a power shortage.
“Power cuts during blackouts occurred at the circuit level, with many local providers choosing which circuits to shut down and when,” the suit said. “So there were images of empty office buildings in downtown Houston with power, but the Pinedas trailer park was out of power.”
Buzbee is representing about half a dozen other cases in which families lost loved ones to the cold, presumably because they did not obtain accurate information about the seriousness of the pending energy crisis.
“It’s so ironic to me … Texas is the country’s energy capital, as the United States proudly proclaims its energy independence, that we no longer have the Middle East, etc.,” said Buzbee. “And we still have people dying in Houston, Texas, in their homes because they don’t have the power.”
Entergy said in a statement that it could not comment on pending litigation, but that the company is “deeply saddened by the loss of life in our community”.
Millions of Texans were left without power when an unusual cold wave hit the southwestern state, lowering temperatures below freezing and covering the state of ice and snow. ERCOT, which oversees about 90 percent of Texas’ energy production, cited frozen equipment for the loss of production of its natural gas and some renewable energy sources.
Texas is free from federal regulations because it is the only state to use its own power grid, although it is one of the largest energy producers and consumers in the country. Critics said this independence allowed the state to evade federal requirements that would have better prepared the power grid for the winter, in order to maximize its profits for private utility providers.
ERCOT has not yet analyzed the dispute, but added in a statement that it believes it has done the right thing to prevent a blackout across the state. The energy manager cited the fact that 46 percent of private generation shut down last Monday.
“Our thoughts are with all Texans who have suffered and are suffering due to the past week,” said ERCOT.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared ERCOT reform a top priority last week, urging the legislature to investigate the power grid service.
“This is unacceptable,” said Abbot. “Reviewing ERCOT’s preparations and decisions is an emergency item so that we can have a complete view of what caused this problem and find long-term solutions.”
