I am sure many of you were thoroughly disturbed about what we saw and heard that many Texans went through last month when their deregulated power grid came within hours of a total statewide blackout.

You probably wondered, as I did: Can such a catastrophe happen here?

More than 30 Texans died during what has been described as a “once in a generation” event.

Sure, Texans are familiar with heat waves and hurricanes, but snow and ice storms, accompanied by extremely cold temperatures, are rare.

Because of this rarity, power companies took some shortcuts and failed to winterize facilities. Demand was extraordinarily high, too, as Texans tried to stay warm.

What happened in Texas is unlikely to happen to us in Pennsylvania, according to state regulators, although we have from time to time experienced prolonged power outages during severe winter storms, tropical storm remnants or extreme power usage.

Who can forget the impact that Superstorm Sandy had on our region in 2012. Some were without power for a few days; others did not have it restored until more than a week after Sandy left her calling card.

There were about 400,000 PPL customers without power, including about 13,400 in Carbon County, 19,000 in Schuylkill and about 44,000 in Monroe County. In addition, there were nearly 300,000 Met-Ed outages, including nearly 250,000 in Northampton and Lehigh counties.

Most of these outages were caused by high winds when limbs and trees fell on power lines. As a result of this wake-up call, the utility companies began an aggressive program of proactive limb-cutting and pruning.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, power customers in our country lose between 1.5 and 2 hours electrical of power each year, not including extreme weather episodes.

When these events are factored in, the power loss is 4.7 hours on average nationally, 4.15 hours in Pennsylvania, or way less than a minute a day.

PPL, with its 1.43 million customers over a large swath of eastern and central Pennsylvania, averaged just 2.55 hours without power, including major incidents. Met-Ed did not fare as well. With 566,000 customers, its power outage averaged 4.39 hours, including major events.

Unusual problems in Texas with its deregulated power system exist, including not being connected to the national grid, nor are most of the utilities’ facilities winterized.

Texas went through a similar episode about 10 years ago, although it was not quite so severe. The plan after that event was to “look into” winterizing the grid. This, however, is a costly endeavor, and, of course, it cuts into a utility’s profitability and its bottom line. Although there was a lot of talk, there was little action, opening the door to February’s disaster.

You can be sure that something much more concrete will come out of this February’s mess that is continuing to play out because of all the damage done to not only the utilities but to homes, businesses and infrastructure. Already heads are rolling, and resignations and firings are piling up.

I am sure many of you have also heard about some of these outrageous utility bills that customers on some energy plans have been getting in the Lone Star state. In some cases, customers have been paying more than $10,000 a month.

Rolling blackouts occurred in Texas during the heart of the storms, just as they have in some adjoining states. I can’t recall rolling blackouts in our area, although there have been from time to time calls to conserve energy during high-use periods, especially during the summer when temperatures soar into the 90s, forcing users to crank up the air conditioning.

PJM Interconnection LLC, which operates and monitors the nation’s largest electric grid that includes Pennsylvania, uses a planning and winter preparedness process that ensures fewer major power interruptions.

Its member utilities, including PPL and First Energy, owner of Met-Ed, coordinate throughout the year to prepare for winter conditions. In this part of the world, a company spokesman said, most generating plants are constructed with the anticipation of lower temperatures.

The PJM spokesman said that reliability is the company’s most important responsibility.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com

The foregoing opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Times News LLC.