A Texan was unpleasantly surprised to find that his next electric bill is set at $ 16,752, after his consumption skyrocketed in the state’s latest snowstorm.
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“My savings are gone,” told the New York Times Scott Willoughby, a 63-year-old army veteran.
Living primarily on Social Security payments, the suburban Dallas resident said he emptied his account by paying his electric bill, 70 times higher this month than the amount he usually pays.
“I can’t do anything about it, but it broke me,” he reacted in an interview with the American daily.
And he’s not the only one in this situation, as dozens of Texans face the same issue for leaving their lights on during the storm, reported the. New York Times.
Most of them are customers of the Griddy company, a small company in the Houston area, which provides electricity at market price and not at a fixed rate, said the New York media.
Foreseeing this astronomical rise in prices, the company even encouraged its customers to switch suppliers when the storm arrived, a change few Texans were able to make.
Faced with this situation, Republican Governor Greg Abbott organized an emergency meeting on Saturday to find a solution.
“We have a responsibility to protect Texans against peaks in their energy bills resulting from winter weather and power outages,” the governor said in a statement.
More than 60,000 homes in the state were still without power on Saturday after the devastation of the storm, according to the poweroutage site.