A man from Texas received a shocking $16,752 electricity bill after the state suffered severe weather conditions which struck down big parts of the power grid.
Millions of locals were left with no power whatsoever when a monstrous storm hit the state, but some of the people whose homes did not suffer a power shortage are not feeling so lucky now as their energy bills arrive on their doorsteps.
In an interview for the New York Times, 63-year-old Scott Willoughby said he was hit with a $16,752 electric bill – a shocking 70 times what he usually pays for all his utilities combined.
He said:
“My savings is gone.
“There’s nothing I can do about it, but it’s broken me.”
And this poor man is not the only person who’s been handed such a bad had of fate – DeAndre Upshaw, from Dallas, said he also received a ‘very shocking’ $7,000 bill.
He told CNN:
“While I’m trying to get gas and groceries and make sure that my pipes don’t explode, the last thing I’m thinking about is a $7,000 bill from my utility company.”
The Financial Times reported that the price of electricity skyrocketed to the maximum allowable rate of $9,000 a megawatt hour for 5 days last week.
That means homes were charged $9 per kilowatt-hour compared to the regular cost of 12 cents.
This resulted in Texas Governor Greg Abbott holding an emergency meeting to discuss the problem.
In a statement he made after the meeting, he said:
“We have a responsibility to protect Texans from spikes in their energy bills that are a result of the severe winter weather and power outages.
“Today’s meeting was productive, and I applaud Republican and Democrat members of the Legislature for putting aside partisan politics to work together on this challenge.
“We are moving quickly to alleviate this problem and will continue to work collaboratively throughout this week on solutions to help Texas families and ensure they do not get stuck with skyrocketing energy bills.”
The state’s utility regulator, Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT), told CNN it was looking into the ‘the factors that combined with the devastating winter weather to disrupt the flow of power to millions of Texas homes’.
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