The energy suppliers of the Texas Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and Entergy Corporation were hit with a $ 100 million lawsuit accusing them of gross negligence in the death of a child whose family suspects he suffered hypothermia by losing electricity and heat in your mobile home during a historic cold wave.
Cristian Pineda’s 11-year-old mother filed the wrongful death lawsuit in Jefferson County District Court, claiming that utility giants “put profits on people’s well-being”, ignoring previous recommendations for prepare its power grid for the winter, which suffered an epic failure this week and left more than 4 million customers without heating and electricity, as temperatures in some parts of the state have dropped to single digits.
“Despite being aware of the terrible weather forecast at least a week in advance and that the system had not been ready for more than a decade, ERCOT and Entergy did not take any preventive action that could have prevented the crisis and were totally unprepared to deal with the crisis in question “, states the process.
Cristian died Tuesday at his family’s mobile home in Houston’s Conroe suburb, while sharing a bed with his 3-year-old brother under a pile of blankets in an attempt to stay warm, according to the lawsuit.
The sixth grader, who migrated to the United States two years ago with his family, was a healthy boy who on the eve of his death was playing in the snow for the first time in his life, his mother, Maria Pineda, told Houston Chronicle .
Maria Pineda found her son unanswered the next day and called 911 while trying to perform a CPR, according to the lawsuit.
While the Pineda family claims the child died frozen, the official cause of death awaits the results of an autopsy, according to the Conroe Police Department.
Entergy released a statement to ABC KTRK station in Houston, saying, “We are deeply saddened by the loss of life in our community. We cannot comment due to pending litigation.”
ERCOT, which manages the power grid for more than 25 million customers, said in a statement that it had not yet analyzed the process, but “will respond accordingly as soon as we do”.
“Our thoughts are with all Texans who have suffered and suffered due to last week,” continued the statement from ERCOT.
Entergy – which supplies electricity to customers in Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi – issued a statement, saying, “We are unable to comment due to pending litigation.”
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of life in our community,” wrote the concessionaire.
ERCOT officials said they started emergency blackouts on February 15, after a snowstorm covered much of Texas and caused temperatures to drop below freezing. The agency said it took drastic measures to prevent a catastrophic blackout across the state.
“As approximately 46% of private generation shut down last Monday morning, we are confident that our network operators have made the right choice to prevent a blackout across the state,” said ERCOT in its statement.
But the lawsuit – filed on behalf of Maria Pineda and Cristian Pineda’s estate by lawyer Anthony Buzbee – says the power has been turned off for “those who were most vulnerable to the cold”.
“So there were images of empty office buildings in downtown Houston with power, but the Pineda trailer park ran out of power,” says the lawsuit.
The process blamed ERCOT for deceiving customers, assuring them that blackouts would be temporary.
“The blackouts, instead, lasted for days. Failure to adequately inform the Claimants about the duration of the blackouts prevented them from adequately preparing for power outages or leaving the area. Accurate information may have saved Cristian’s young life. Pineda, “claimed the suit.
The Pinedas were without power and heating for two days and, during that time, temperatures plummeted to 10 degrees in their area, the process says.
Instead of informing customers, such as the Pinedas, that blackouts would be prolonged, ERCOT sent messages on social media so that customers would not do laundry on Valentine’s Day and “turn off the new sophisticated gadgets you bought during the pandemic and used just once, “according to the process, which included an image from ERCOT’s Valentine’s Day social media post
The suit also noted that, after a severe winter storm in 2011, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and North American Electric Reliability Corporation issued a report informing ERCOT that “additional preparation for the Texas energy infrastructure was needed” .
A large number of units that shut down or were unable to start during the 2011 storm demonstrated that “generators did not adequately predict the full impact of prolonged cold weather and strong winds,” according to the report cited in the file.
“Despite being aware of the terrible weather forecast at least a week in advance and that the system had not been ready for more than a decade, ERCOT and Entergy did not take any preventive action that could have prevented the crisis and were totally unprepared to deal with the crisis in question ”, states the action.
As the ERCOT system does not cross state borders, the agency is not subject to federal regulation or inspection, according to the action.
The recommendations were voluntary at the time, but will become mandatory at the end of next year. In an interview last week with KTRK, an ERCOT employee seemed to suggest that at least some of the recommendations were followed. “In 2018 it was just as cold, just as windy, and we had very few off-line generation plants,” ERCOT senior director of operations, Dan Woodfin, told KTRK. “It looked like these best practices and what the generators were doing in that regard were working.”
“Instead of investing in infrastructure to prepare for the well-known winter storms that would certainly come and leave vulnerable people without energy, suppliers preferred to put profits above people’s well-being, and ERCOT allowed them to do this “, the process states.