Frustrated Texans Remain Without Heat, Power in Below Freezing Temps
gvw_ap_news
By Associated Press
Published 1 year ago on
February 3, 2023
An iced over pedestrian walkway is lined by trees that are covered with ice from a few days of sleet and rain, Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023, in Dallas. (AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez)

Share

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Thousands of frustrated Texans shivered in homes without power for a second day Thursday, most of them around booming Austin, and fading hopes of a quick fix stirred grim memories of a deadly 2021 blackout after an icy winter storm across the southern U.S.

The freeze has been blamed for at least 10 traffic deaths on slick roads this week in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma. And even as Texas finally began thawing Thursday, a new Artic front from Canada was headed toward the northern U.S. and threatening New England with potentially the coldest weather in decades. Wind chills could dive below minus 50.

In Austin, city officials compared the damage from fallen trees and iced-over power lines to tornadoes as they came under mounting criticism for slow repairs and shifting timelines to restore power.

“We had hoped to make more progress today,“ said Jackie Sargent, general manager of Austin Energy. ”And that simply has not happened.”

Across Texas more than 280,000 customers were without power Thursday night, down from 430,000 earlier in the day, according to PowerOutage.us. The failures were most widespread in Austin, where impatience was rising among 150,000 customers nearly two days after the electricity first went out, which for many also means no heat. Power failures have affected about 30% of customers in the city of nearly a million at any given time since Wednesday.

By Thursday night, Austin officials backtracked on early estimates that power would be fully restored by Friday evening, saying the extent of the damage was worse than originally calculated and that they could no longer predict when all the lights may come back on.

Allison Rizzolo, who lost power in Austin, told KEYE-TV that she wished there were more clarity from the city on what to do or expect.

“I get that there’s a fine line between preparedness and panic, but I wish they’d been more aggressive in their communications,” Rizzolo said.

For many Texans, it was the second time in three years that a February freeze — temperatures were in the 30s Thursday with wind chills below freezing — caused prolonged outages and uncertainty over when the lights would come back on.

Unlike the 2021 blackouts in Texas, when hundreds of people died after the state’s grid was pushed to the brink of total failure because of a lack of generation, the outages in Austin this time were largely the result of frozen equipment and ice-burdened trees and limbs falling on power lines. But the differences were little comfort to Austin residents and businesses that also lost power for days two years ago.

Among those still without power Thursday was the Central Texas Food Bank, according to Travis County Judge Andy Brown, the county’s top elected official.

“They have 21 counties to serve. They’ve been down for at least three days now. There’s a lot of need that they have,” Brown said.

School systems in the Dallas and Austin area, plus many in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee, closed Thursday as snow, sleet and freezing rain continued to push through. In Austin, schools will not open until next week at the earliest.

Hundreds more flights were canceled again in Texas, although not as many as in previous days.

Airport crews battled ice to keep runways open. By Thursday morning, airlines had canceled more than 500 flights at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport — more than a quarter of all flights scheduled for the day. Still, that was down from about 1,300 cancellations on Wednesday and more than 1,000 on Tuesday, according to FlightAware.com.

Dozens more flights were canceled at Dallas Love Field and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

Another Frigid Wave on Horizon

Another wave of frigid weather in the U.S. is on the horizon, with an Arctic cold front expected to move from Canada into the northern Plains and Upper Midwest and sweep into the Northeast by Friday.

In a briefing Thursday with the federal Weather Prediction Center, New Englanders were warned that wind chills — the combined effect of wind and cold air on exposed skin — in the minus 50s “could be the coldest felt in decades.”

The strong winds and cold air will create wind chills “rarely seen in northern and eastern Maine,” according to an advisory from the National Weather Service office in Caribou, Maine.

Jay Broccolo, director of weather operations at an observatory on New Hampshire’s Mount Washington — which for decades held the world record for the fastest wind gust — said Thursday that wind speeds could top 100 mph.

“We take safety really seriously in the higher summits,” Broccolo said, “and this weekend’s forecast is looking pretty gnarly, even for our standards.”

RELATED TOPICS:

DON'T MISS

FresYes Fest Is Saturday: This Immigrant Is Living the American Dream With Xtreme Shawarma

DON'T MISS

Records Show That Valley Children’s Leader Suntrapak’s Pay Exceeds $5 Million

DON'T MISS

3 Valley Schools Honored by State as Model Community Day Schools

DON'T MISS

Will FUSD Trustees Look First Only at Internal Candidates in Superintendent Search?

DON'T MISS

Fresno Bank Sued. It Allegedly Helped Bitwise Commit Fraud.

DON'T MISS

How California’s Prized Solution for Methane Gas Is Backfiring on Farmers

DON'T MISS

Bredefeld, Chavez Win Attorneys Fees from Fresno County. Court Gives Chavez Blvd. a Green Light.

DON'T MISS

Trump’s Lawyers Say It Is Impossible for Him to Post Bond Covering $454 Million Civil Fraud Judgment

DON'T MISS

Special Congressional Election Tuesday. How Many Have Voted Already?

DON'T MISS

Brothers Say They Found Amelia Earhart’s Plane, Will Donate It to Smithsonian

No data was found

The 49ers Have Been Docked a 2025 Fifth-Round Draft Pick for an Accounting Error

6 hours ago

Fresno Bank Sued. It Allegedly Helped Bitwise Commit Fraud.

bitwise /

6 hours ago

How California’s Prized Solution for Methane Gas Is Backfiring on Farmers

environment /

9 hours ago

Supreme Court Seems Favorable to Biden Administration Over Efforts to Combat Social Media Posts

10 hours ago

Putin Extends Rule in Preordained Russian Election After Harshest Crackdown Since Soviet Era

10 hours ago

Ohtani to Begin Throwing Program Soon. Roberts Hints Dodgers Star Might Play in the Field

10 hours ago

Trump: Some Migrants Are ‘Not People’, There’ll Be a ‘Bloodbath’ if I Lose

10 hours ago

Tech Lawyer and Philanthropist Nicole Shanahan Rumored as RFK Jr.’s VP Pick

news /

11 hours ago

March Madness is Here. UConn, Purdue, Houston and North Carolina Get Top Seeding in NCAA Tournament

11 hours ago

Crafts Retailer Joann Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy as Consumers Cut Back on Pandemic-Era Hobbies

12 hours ago

Records Show That Valley Children’s Leader Suntrapak’s Pay Exceeds $5 Million

■Valley Children’s paid CEO Todd Suntrapak $5.2 million in 2021. The hospital also gave him a $5 million forgivable home loan. ■The Va...
Healthcare /

6 hours ago

3 days ago

Realtor Association Settles Lawsuit on Commission Rules. Fresno Broker Fears the End of Market Transparency

3 days ago

Prosecutor Leaves Georgia Election Case Against Trump After Relationship With District Attorney

3 days ago

Rory McIlroy’s 65: 10 Birdies, 2 Tee Shots in the Water, 1 Testy Dispute

3 days ago

Aaron Donald Announces His Retirement After a Standout 10-Year Career With the Rams

3 days ago

New Book Explores the Myths, Truths and Legacy of the Macho Man

4 days ago

Baseball Superstar Ohtani and His Wife Arrive in South Korea for Dodgers-Padres MLB Opener

4 days ago

India’s New Citizenship Law Excludes Muslims. Here’s What to Know

4 days ago

US, G-7 Allies Warn Iran to Back Off Deal to Provide Russia Ballistic Missiles or Face New Sanctions

Photo of San Francisco 49ers' Arik Armstead

4 days ago

Former 49ers DT Arik Armstead Agrees to a 3-Year, $51 Million Deal with the Jaguars, AP Source Says

4 days ago

Supreme Court Rules Public Officials Can Sometimes Be Sued for Blocking Critics on Social Media

Search