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It’s the middle of the night in Texas, a state with an economy larger than Canada’s, and Emily Wolinsky has to decide whether she wants to try surviving without her ventilator, or whether to let the ventilator continue blowing 40-degree air up her nostrils.

The ventilator is blowing 40-degree air because that’s the temperature inside her house, the result of a massive winter storm that devastated Texas. In attempts to reduce stress on the state’s power grid, utility providers shut off power to millions of Texans as temperatures dropped into the 20s, sometimes for multiple days.

Wolinsky, a student accessibility services associate advocate at Austin Community College and president of the nonprofit NMD United, was one of many disabled Texans who were left to fend for themselves without basic services. After three freezing days and nights, the power came back on and she recounted her harrowing experience in a story she published on The Disability Visibility Project. You can read her tale in its entirety at: disabilityvisibilityproject.com/2021/02/24/still-in-texas

In it, she goes into the details of surviving those three days, but also how the storm burst her “bubble of independence” — that Lonestar, pull yourself up by the bootstraps Texas ethos that she’d bought into when she moved to Austin after college. “I thought that if I paid my bills and my taxes that this would be enough to receive ongoing social services and basic protections, like access to utilities, street upkeep, etc. Meeting my civic responsibilities as an adult would keep me an independent disabled Texan and that, I thought, kept up my end of the bargain,” she writes.

Apparently that’s not how everyone sees it. “Nobody owes you or your family anything; nor is it your local government’s responsibility to support you during trying times like this!” wrote the (now former) mayor of Colorado City, Texas in a Facebook post during the storm. “Sink or swim it’s your choice!” That’s about as extreme as a pull yourself up by the bootstraps mentality gets.

So, with climate change making formerly once-in-generation storms all the more frequent, I got in touch with Wolinsky to chat about what she learned about self-sufficiency, her state, how to create more resilient communities and, of course, bootstraps.

NEW MOBILITY: In the story you talk about coming to Texas and buying into the ethos of independence. With this storm, do you think that it changed how people in Texas view this independence mindset?

EMILY WOLINSKY: Because it’s Texas, I just think it made people more proudly believe that if they’re going to survive, they need to depend on themselves. I don’t think it helped.

Overall, the experience made me want to get to know my neighbors better, and I want them to know that they can come talk to me if they need help. I was pretty isolated before this. I know people who are friends with all their neighbors, and they have block parties. That doesn’t really happen in my neighborhood, and that needs to change.

But I have no faith that anything Texas is going to do emergency-management-wise is going to work. I don’t have much faith in our local politicians working toward helping people with disabilities. Still, I’m going to try — like I’m speaking at the governor’s committee on people with disabilities next week — but I know the governor [wheelchair user Greg Abbott] won’t hear it.

NM: That’s a terrible realization to come out of an experience like this with.

EW: It just confirmed my fears that I would be completely left for dead. I’d always assumed that before, but now I can actually say, ‘Yeah, that’s true. That’s what happens.’ Our government’s leadership does not care about people with disabilities and it’s shown. Our governor is the Texas king of giving no f—s, and he has a disability, which reflects his inability to empathize with his voters.

NM: What do you think it would take to create more resilient systems so that Texans in general and disabled Texans in particular never have to go through something like this again?

EW: It’s going to take someone who’s not an ableist to go into a leadership role and prioritize people with disabilities and other more vulnerable populations. Texans with disabilities need to get involved in their local politics. Like my friend Ali Ramos is running for city council of Amarillo. There are people out there like Val Vera who is very active in his small community of Denton. Mutual aid programs are huge for people with disabilities. Going local is going to be really, really important, and that’s how it’ll change.

NM: You grew up in Upstate New York. With how bad this past experience was, did it ever shake your faith in staying in Texas?

EW: I would probably leave if it were just about what my services are. But there are so many wonderful people in Texas, like my personal care assistants. The people in my life, the relationships I’ve built and my job — everything about being here is good. It’s just unfortunate that it can’t be like that for everyone all of the time. I can’t move because I just couldn’t say goodbye to all the people I love.

NM: So if Texas is taking self-sufficiency to the extreme, are you investing in a more powerful pair of bootstraps?

EW: We bought a generator, and now we’re nervous we didn’t buy a powerful enough generator. We’re turning into weird preppers. Technically, this kind of storm hasn’t happened in 30 years, so you’re basically buying peace of mind. I bought a $1,200 generator — that’s how much peace of mind I have, and I don’t know if it’ll hold out. Since Elon Musk is here, it’d be neat if I could get some solar-powered bootstraps.