When we talk about the impacts of climate change, extreme heat may be silent, but it can be incredibly deadly. In fact, according to data tracked by the National Weather Service, heat kills more than twice as many people each year on average in the U.S. as hurricanes and tornadoes combined.

Now, it is standard in Phoenix for every truck, every ambulance to carry body bags and body bags. And bags full of ice in order to cool people down as fast as possible.

In the Phoenix area. There have been 27 confirmed heat related deaths this year, but it's suspected to be the cause of nearly 400 more.

The wrong kind of record. The hottest day on earth ever. It breaks the previous record held for a whopping one day.

And so as heat records continue to fall around the world, access to air conditioning is more important than ever. But what happens when the power grid it's connected to is unreliable or nonexistent? My guest today is CNN Senior National Correspondent Ed Lavandera. We're going to talk about why electricity headaches just seem bigger in Texas and go inside the mission to light up Navajo Nation. From CNN this is One Thing. I'm David Rind.

So, Ed, you're based in Texas and it seems like on a pretty regular basis we hear about huge electricity issues in the state after a major weather event. And I guess I've been wondering like why that is?

Yeah, there's definitely a feeling here in Texas about anytime there's a hurricane, a winter storm, we're going to have extended periods of temperatures over well over 100 degrees. You know, there's this kind of sense that has kind of existed over the state since the 2021 deep freeze, that oh my goodness, here we go again.

Deadly Hurricane Beryl making landfall along the Gulf Coast, battering Texas with hurricane force winds whipping up to 94mph.

You know, just a few weeks ago, we had Hurricane Beryl that came up through the Texas Gulf Coast, and we had, I believe it was more than 2 million customers. And remember, these power companies talk about customers, which are, homes businesses, not individual people, but different customers.

It could be a bunch of people in a home.

Right. So that that 2 million number is probably much higher in terms of people that are that are affected. Right. But, you know, that was devastating to see.

To see the CenterPoint trucks riding through here and then your lights still not on, that's the frustrating part

Do you feel like the city and CenterPoint energy did enough to prepare for the storm?

No, they did not. No, they did not.

And it took well over a week, almost two weeks, to get the vast majority of those people, back online. And the frustration, with the power grid in the, in the power company and state officials, it's really been palpable.

Right. And like you said, this kind of keeps happening when these weather events pop up. And obviously, climate change is just going to keep bringing these extreme events along. So like, what's the fix?

Well, depending on who you talk to, you know, so here, in the state of Texas, which likes to bill itself as the, you know, the energy capital, not only of the country, but one of the energy capitals of the world, but this is also a state that has been built, and its financial success and its financial security has largely been built on the back of the fossil fuel industry. But what is interesting is that quietly, or maybe not so quietly, renewable energies have had a profound effect on the state's power grid, and being able to withstand so many of the extreme weather events that we've experienced. So, you know, recently solar and wind have, according to energy experts, kind of supplied it on different times. You know, 30 to 40% of the energy demands that are coming out of this state. But one of the other things that is the problem, you know, it's like you have a energy generation issue, but you also have a delivery problem, right? Like you can generate a bunch of electricity. But if the infrastructure that then connects that power to people's homes and businesses, isn't able to withstand these extreme weather events, that's also part of the problem. You know, in Houston after Hurricane Beryl, this is a very wooded area in southeast Texas. So there was extensive, extensive damage to the power line system all throughout the state. And many places that you go, you know, power lines are still above ground. And in these extreme weather events, those power poles crack and they splinter and they fall apart. The trees fall on them. And that is really tedious, kind of backbreaking work and slow work to repair.

Well, I guess then, you know, if you have all these old, outdated wooden power poles and still aboveground, why not bury the lines? Is that something that's been talked about?

It gets talked about quite a bit. It's just an incredibly costly process to put all of those power lines in so many places below ground. And that's the struggle that we're seeing right now is, you know, on one side, people pushing for investment in power generation and then others saying that, look, you can generate everything that you want or that you might need, but if the if the tools aren't there to deliver it, then you know, what's the point of it. So there's I think kind of that that tension between both of those sides that have been growing here in the state.

It's been long and hot days across our city as thousands remain without electricity after Hurricane Beryl.

What else can you do, put yourself in survival mode.

So one of the issues that is really becoming more troubling is that you have an event like a Hurricane Beryl, that leaves more than 2 million customers without power. But all of this happened in the middle of a heat wave that kind of followed that storm. So you're you're now starting to get into really, really dangerous situations. You know, we did some reporting on a number of elderly centers that were left without power. I mean, these are the kinds of events that are almost like reminiscent of the days of when we covered Hurricane Katrina, where so many people who were the most vulnerable in our society are left in the most dangerous of situations. So, you know, having to battle through losing power in the middle of heat waves that are just becoming more and more relentless here in this state. That's the kind of combination that has left many people frustrated and very concerned about the future.

So before the break, we were talking about how access to electricity and then the ability to run air conditioning during heat waves is obviously something that's going to be a big focus of all of our climate futures. You and your team have been doing some reporting on a group of people trying to beat the heat without any electricity at all. So like, what does that look like?

Yeah, we learned a few months ago about this effort to bring electrical power to some of the most poorest regions in the country. And we found that in the Navajo Nation, which is in northwest New Mexico and part of Arizona as well, that there are still 13,000 families that live without electricity, which seem just staggering to us. So this isn't just a, you know, a story about extreme poverty. It's also just a story about extreme danger and the vulnerabilities of of some communities.

Bryan just real, real basic, which is like, what are you guys doing out here right now?

A few years ago, I saw a article in the IBW newsletter that talked about the Light Up Navajo project...

We learned about this grassroots effort to kind of fix this problem there in Navajo Nation. It's called Light Up Navajo. And essentially, the nation's utility service has created this program where they partner with about 46 different utility companies from 16 states across the country. And those utility companies send workers, at their expense, to go and build dozens of miles of power lines through this rugged terrain. And so we spent several days following this group. We happened to follow a group that was from Trico Electric Cooperative in Arizona. And you know, the workers there, they volunteer for these assignments.

Why do you like coming out here?

It's just to give back. I don't think any part of America shouldn't have electricity in 2024. Now, most of the country since back in the 30s have had electricity, and it just didn't seem right to me. And I'm in a position where I can do something about it.

And one of the reasons they said they did it is like, you know, they were just we're just stunned that in 2024 that there were these huge parts of the country that were not connected to the power grid.

I mean, I'm stunned, and I like I literally can't imagine what it's like, especially out in the desert.

Oh, no, it's it's incredibly difficult. And not only just from a, a temperature standpoint, right, like in the heat of the summer, but it also has just a bunch of different practical benefits.

The church people they bring water. That’s the only three barrels we have right there....

If you are without electricity, you really don't have a water system either. So many of these families have to drive miles and miles to to find water and bring it back, because there's not a an electrical system that can run, a water pump for them. For example.

We have this for the charging.

And you just do it through the car.

Yeah. We put this on the cigarette lighter. We plug it in like you like this, to our phones like that, and we let it sit for, like, an hour or two hours until it fully charges.

So the car. So. Yeah. You know, it's not just the heat that they're dealing with. It's just literally the everyday, parts of life. Refrigeration to keep food sanitary. You know, all of these things are just like things that the vast majority of the country takes for granted.

Well, I guess the obvious question, and I don't want to sound insensitive here, Ed, is why don't these people just move somewhere else where they can have this electricity easier, rather than waiting for this group to come and do all this hard work of putting in these lines.

Right. And it's an understandable question. I think, you know, in our experience and speaking with many of these families, you know, there's a deep connection to this, to this land and where they're from.

I don't want to be anywhere else. I got used to being here. It's quiet. And my my grandparents were from here. They left this land for us. And I like living here. And I want to raise my grandkids here and my kids.

If you don't get electricity soon, would you..

I'm going to stay here.

You're going to fight through it.

Yeah. If they want to give me electricity. They can give me electricity, but I'm going to stay here.

We also have to take into account that the levels of poverty here are extreme, and it's not as easy for these families to say we're just going to get up and go live somewhere else.

So you're less than 24 hours away from getting electricity at your house.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.

Exciting.

Yeah it sure is. I mean to have electricity finally you know at one time hopefully.

We met a man named William who we had interviewed him the night before. The power would be turned on at his home. And we were sitting there as the sun was setting, and he kind of described how, just on the edges of his property, his family lives.

We've always been surviving without electricity. My grandma, my grandparents always never had electricity, never had running water.

He actually lived in Arizona for a while, had an apartment with electricity and air conditioning and refrigeration, and he wanted to move back to Navajo Nation. He worked at a, car shop in, in a nearby town. But he wanted to be closer back to his family. He wanted to be closer back to this this land that had so much, you know, deep meaning to him personally.

Did you ever get frustrated? Did you ever think this is a hard way to live.

Yeah. Of course. You know, there's this frustration, you know, by thinking that I could be kicking back on a sofa with watching TV or whatever, you know? But I usually like busy here, so. So I kind of. It doesn't bother me too much, you know, because I'm always busy, right? Yeah.

But it's be nice to be able to run air conditioning.

Definitely. Yes. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

You ready? All right. Yeah. Are you ready? Ready?

But we were there the next morning when the power utility came and essentially flipped the switch.

All right. Yeah. The lights are pretty good. That's pretty good. Thank you.

In fact, he had to. Just moments before all of that happened, he had to race into town to buy a light bulb because he had forgotten...

He didn't have a light bulb.

He didn't have a light bulb. He had forgotten to buy a light bulb like he'd never needed one in this house.

How's that feel?

Great, great. I like it. Wow. That's neat. I mean, I've seen electricity before, but not my own property.

He was really, really stoic the night before, like he did. He kind of played it off like it wasn't that big of a deal. But the moment he switched that, he flipped that switch and the light came on. Yeah, his face lit up.

You can go buy an air conditioning unit.

I need to, I need to. Yes I do. And a refrigerator and everything else. Yeah. So probably 70 foot or 70 inch TV or whatever.

You could run whatever you want. Yeah. His demeanor completely changed, and I think he was kind of caught off guard by just how how amazing that mode that moment was for him.

You keep staring at that light bulb.

Yeah. Yeah. Waiting for it to go off. Yeah. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. All right. Yep. All right.

So far, this effort to light up Navajo Nation has helped about, 850 families. I believe the number was. And what is really staggering, if you kind of work the math out in the pace that they're working out. The organizers of this effort tell us that it will still take another three decades to get power to every household that they're trying to, that they're trying to service three decades of a staggering. And when you think of that in terms of the race against climate change and extreme heat, you know, that's that's not a really good statistic.

No it's just another example of how, you know, often marginalize and groups with the least resources, can be left behind as the world adapts to climate change. It's great reporting. Ed, thank you for sharing it with us, I appreciate it.

Oh, thanks so much for sharing the story.

One Thing is a production of CNN Audio. This episode was produced by Paola Ortiz and me, David Rind. Our senior producer is Faiz Jamil. Our supervising producer is Greg Peppers. Matt Dempsey is our production manager. Dan Dzula is our technical director. And Steve Licktieg is the executive producer of CNN Audio. We get support from Haley Thomas, Alex Manasseri, Robert Mathers, John Dianora, Leni Steinhardt, Jamus Andrest, Nicole Pesaru and Lisa Namerow. Special thanks to Ashley Killough, Wendy Brundidge and Katie Hinman. We'll be back on Wednesday. In the meantime, if you like the show, leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Tell a friend, tell a family member. Tell a stranger I don't care. Talk to you. later.