Winter gas bill from hell: Oklahomans face paying $1.4bn over snowstorm

Customers saddled with paying 600 times the usual price for energy as regulators are accused of being too close to the industry they monitor

When Neil Crittenden heard that an extreme winter storm was about to hit Oklahoma last winter, he did what officials advised him to do and kept his heat on and water running so that his pipes wouldn't freeze. The 40-year-old Oklahoma City resident even used hair dryers to keep them thawed.

What Crittenden didn't know at the time was that the energy he used was going to cost him significantly. As winter storm Uri swept across the south central US last February, utilities that weren't prepared scrambled. The storm caused blackouts in several states and resulted in the deaths of at least 223 people.