What do you get when you add a sudden surge of demand to an equally sudden loss of capacity? A crisis, whose roots lie in a decade’s worth of deregulation and cost-cutting, of an energy “independence” that has left the state at the mercy of the elements.
The author is asking a rhetorical question and answering it immediately. He is doing this not only to clear one of the audience's questions regarding the consequences of Texas situations, but also to make the government officials more guilty for leaving Texas in this situation.