Texas suffers hard from huge catastrophe

The destructive Texas winter storm has been declared a major disaster by President Joe Biden.

The horrific weather is hard to understand in 2021, when Texas and the rest of the United States have achieved so much by working hard for America’s enormously welcoming lifestyle.

When one of our states has a life-threatening shortage of drinking water, what is happening is incomprehensible in our proud landscape.

Biden has ordered that federal funding be made available across the state’s 77 counties, including hard-hit Harris County, where

Houston is located.

Actually, boiling water notices remain in effect across 189 counties of the huge, sprawling state’s territories.

More than 1,300 public water systems have reported disruptions in service due to the weather, affecting more than 15.1 million people, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

At least 22 people died as of mid-February, despite thousands of community efforts to take care of the residents.

The Texas National Guard has been deployed across the state to conduct welfare checks and assist local authorities in helping those

in need to find a local warming station.

On Friday night, guardsmen delivered 28,000 water bottles to Austin for those in need of drinking water.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes, D-NY, has helped raise $3.2 million alongside Rep. Sylvia Garcia and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Democrats

who represent Houston.

Ocasio-Cortes said in a press conference Saturday morning, “I think this shows that New York stands by you, but the whole country stands by you.”

Other states were also hard hit by the winter storm. Mississippi had more than 62,000 outages Saturday afternoon, while Louisiana was grappling with more than 35,000 blackouts.

In Tennessee, the Memphis International Airport was forced to close its passenger terminal and cancel all flights because of water pressure issues on Friday.

More than 15 million people were under orders Saturday to boil tap water in the wake of the punishing winter weather that began a week before and had paralyzed the state, caused frozen and busted water mains and residential pipes and created chaos for water treatment facilities.

Frozen pipes hampered the Killeen Fire Department’s efforts in getting an overnight blaze at the Hilton Garden Inn under control, officials said.

All of the hotel’s 102 rooms were occupied when the Hilton’s automatic sprinkler system failed. Seven agencies assisted in bringing the fire under control just after midnight. Only some minor injuries were reported.