A brutal winter storm cripples Texas and its power grid

A historic winter storm plunged Texas into a deadly crisis this February, as a blast of Arctic air drove temperatures to record lows across the state and overwhelmed an electricity grid never built to handle such extreme cold.

The frigid outbreak, which some linked to a disruption of the polar vortex far to the north, sent temperatures plummeting well below freezing for days across a state more accustomed to guarding against heat. Demand for electricity to heat homes soared just as power plants, natural gas supplies and wind turbines froze and failed.

The result was a catastrophic failure of the state's largely independent power grid. Millions of people lost electricity, many for days, in sub-freezing temperatures. Pipes burst, water systems failed, and the death toll climbed into the hundreds, with many dying of hypothermia or carbon monoxide poisoning as they tried to stay warm.

The disaster exposed the vulnerability of infrastructure designed for one climate when confronted with extreme conditions, and it triggered intense scrutiny of how the grid had been planned, regulated and winterised.

The storm was a stark illustration of a paradox of a warming world: while the overall trend is toward heat, some research suggests a destabilised polar vortex may send occasional blasts of extreme cold to lower latitudes. For Texas, the freeze was a deadly lesson in the cost of being unprepared for weather once thought impossible.