The Texas Storm Power Prep Guide (ERCOT Edition)

This is the page we update every time the Texas grid has a bad week — check the date next to the byline. It exists because the design case is real: in February 2021, more than 4.5 million Texas homes lost power in a freeze that killed at least 57 people and did about $195 billion in damage. Nobody who lived through that week plans for a two-hour outage anymore. Here is the power side of storm prep, sequenced the way events actually unfold.

Know the two seasons

Texas runs two outage seasons. Hurricane season officially spans June 1 to November 30, but NOAA's climatology is more useful than the official window: the peak is September 10, with most activity mid-August through mid-October. Freeze season is February — shorter, less predictable, and historically worse for the grid, because ERCOT demand peaks exactly when generation equipment is most likely to fail. If you buy backup capacity once a year, buy it in July, before the demand spike prices and ship times of September.

Read the grid's own signals

ERCOT tells you when to worry, publicly and in order of severity. Its real-time dashboards show supply, demand, and operating reserves with a six-day forecast — the same picture the control room narrates. A Conservation Appeal is the escalation that matters: ERCOT's formal request to cut usage because reserves are low enough that emergency operations are possible. It is voluntary, it is not a blackout warning — and it is your last comfortable window to top off every battery in the house.

T-minus 72 hours: the charge list

When the forecast turns (tropical system in the Gulf, arctic front on the six-day), run the list: every power station to 100% and left on the wall charger (LiFePO4 packs are fine living topped-off through a storm watch); phones, laptops, and battery banks full; the fridge and freezer to their coldest settings and packed with water bottles for thermal mass; the vehicle's tank filled — it's a 12V generator with seats. If your plan includes a gas generator, this is when fuel gets bought, not when the wind arrives: gasoline starts degrading within about 30 days, so storm-season fuel means stabilizer and rotation, not a forgotten can from last year.

During: spend watt-hours like money

An outage budget is the calculator math run in reverse — you know your usable watt-hours; ration them. The fridge stays closed (packed and cold, it holds safe temperatures for hours between compressor runs off the battery). The CPAP runs with the humidifier off. Lights are LED lanterns, not ceiling fixtures on the inverter. And the line this site will never soften: combustion stays outdoors, twenty feet out, period — CPSC counts roughly 85 CO deaths a year from portable generators, mostly at home, mostly during exactly this scenario. The battery beside the bed is the safe machine; that's half the reason this site exists.

After: the debrief that fixes next time

Refill everything within 24 hours (rolling-blackout patterns mean the grid you have now may leave again). Then write down what actually ran out — hours of runtime, the appliance you wished you'd budgeted for, the cable you didn't own. That list is your next purchase, sized by evidence instead of adrenaline. If this event exposed a capacity gap, the ranked picks are sorted by exactly the math you just lived through.