The New York Democrat launched its fundraising campaign Thursday after extreme cold weather, ice and snow caused the power grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) to fail – leading to rolling blackouts and nearly half of a boiling water recommendation from Texas. The fundraiser had reached $ 1 million on Thursday night. The next day, Ocasio-Cortez said donation figures had risen to $ 2 million, and announced she would visit the state.
On Friday, the congressman said she would fly to Houston to join the Democratic Texas Rep. Sylvia Garcia to distribute supplies. While in Texas, the progressive lawmaker and other Democrats visited food distribution centers, water supply sites and showed the damage left by an unprecedented storm.
Ocasio-Cortez, along with Garcia and Texas Rep. Al Green, said Saturday she wanted to work to help Texans after volunteering at the Houston Food Bank and touring the home of a family affected by the winter storm.
“It’s one thing to read about what’s going on, but it’s quite another to see the damage for yourself,” she said. “The message in Washington is, let’s not get people into a lot of red tape. Let’s try to get this help out the door as often as people need and as quickly as we can.”
When asked by CNN whether Ocasio-Cortez had ever raised money or visited a disaster area before, the New York congressman said this was her first event outside of an effort to combat the Covid-19 pandemic and some relief efforts before she became elected.
“ Our first major relief effort was last year when Covid hit and so we were able to build an emergency relief and fundraising operation and we got our teeth into that with Covid, but that was in our home district, and for that we had So we for the relief of Hurricane Maria, but that was before I was elected to Congress, “she said.” I think this is just something we should be able to do if there is an area in our country that is need.”