AUSTIN ' SNOW DAY' MOSTLY ABOUT ICE
Freezing rain, sleet and some snow fall amid bitter cold; schools and offices close; roads see multiple crashes.
IMPACTS FROM THE STORM
The airport: More than 70 flights in and out of Austin were canceled Tuesday, with 50 or so others delayed.
The roads: Despite pre-treating bridges and flyovers with brine, highway officials had to temporarily close some spots Tuesday morning for follow-up de-icing. The closures included U.S. 183 flyovers at MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) and Interstate 35, as well as I-35’s upper deck. Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Services responded to 136 road incidents from midnight to 9 a.m. Tuesday, including 13 weather-related crashes.
Closures: Public schools were closed Tuesday throughout Central Texas, as were colleges and universities, along with most city, county and state government offices.
THE FORECAST
The freezing rain and flecks of snow have moved on, but the chill remains. Austin temperatures were expected to dip to around 20 degrees overnight, and won’t top freezing until about noon Wednesday, with a high of 42 later in the day. Expect a gradual warm-up to about 70 Saturday and Sunday.
On an odd and frigid Tuesday in Central Texas, with widespread school and business closures on a “snow day” with some ice
but little snow in much of Austin, some people saw a delicious opportunity.
“We have about 30 people in line right now,” Benjamin Jacob, general manager of Franklin Barbecue, said about 10 a.m., an hour or so before the brisket was scheduled to begin hitting plates. “And we’re getting calls from people intending to come in.”
On a normal day, Jacob said, the line at that time would have 75 to 100 people. Given the upper-20s chill, and the relatively short queue, Franklin employees were letting the standees wait inside. Word got out, however, and by noon about 80 meat-lovers were on hand.
“When school shuts down, we tend to get a lot of people in here,” Jacob said. “We’re still rocking and rolling.”
Central Texas in general, however, was sliding and idling Tuesday. Law enforcement was encour
aging that second activity. “We are seeing more road clo- sures and crashes everywhere,” Austin interim Police Chief Brian Manley tweeted about 9:45 a.m. as freezing rain, sleet and some light snow made a midmorning return to the area. “Stay off the roads unless it’s an absolute emergency. The ice patches will sneak up on you.” The north half of the Austin metro area, National Weather Service meteorologist Brett Williams said, saw perhaps two-hundredths of an inch of freezing rain and sleet Monday night through
midday Tuesday. A somewhat heavier wintry mix, up to about an eighth of an inch, ended up falling on the area between San Marcos and San Antonio, Williams said.
Central Texas was expected to stay at or below freezing through the rest of Tuesday and well into Wednesday, leaving the possibility of morning commuters Wednesday encountering black-ice patches.
“It’s not like we’re fully out of the woods,” Williams said.
Leslie Sopko, an Electric Reliability Council of Texas spokeswoman, which runs the state’s electrical grid, said Texas on Tuesday failed to top the all-time demand record of 62,855 megawatts, set between 7 a.m. and 8 a.m. on Jan. 3. But the colder temperatures coming, she said, could mean a new record by Wednesday.
Despite the scant moisture, the weather event was nonetheless tough on those with no shelter.
The Austin Resource Center for the Homeless, with all 112 beds full and facing an overflow of 142 people, worked with local churches and recreation centers to get everyone housed Monday night.
Even so, emergency medical officials Tuesday reported eight calls for “environmental exposure,” which could include homeless people or others outside in the cold for prolonged periods.
With even colder temperatures on the way, Greg McCormack, program director with the Front Steps effort for homeless people, said the same arrangements — including Capital Metro buses to take people to and from the ARCH — were in place again Tuesday night.
“We are crowded, but have great staff that have showed up to work to make sure we are open,” McCormack said. “Very appreciative of all the staff that came in despite road warnings and school closures.”
Consistent with the roller-coaster winter the area has been seeing — Monday afternoon was T-shirt weather for a while — Austin is expected to see 70-degree temperatures again by Saturday.
School districts and universities were closed throughout the area Tuesday, as were the courts and virtually all government offices. Officials on Monday evening, reading a forecast that showed snow and ice headed for the area overnight and then daylong subfreezing temperatures to set that wintry mix in place on the roads, had rushed to keep as many people as possible safe in their homes. Other workers, when they could, were encouraged to work from home.
Austin-Bergstrom International Airport saw more than 70 flights canceled, with many more delayed, in some cases because of rough weather elsewhere in the country.
By and large, those admonitions to stay off the roads were heeded, even if the storm failed in Austin to live up to the most apocalyptic predictions. North MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) about 8 a.m., for instance, had only scattered cars despite being seemingly free of ice.
But there were enough folks whose jobs required them to come in — newspaper reporters and editors being among that special group — that there were scores of wrecks in the metro area, and even some traffic backups on Interstate 35 after police had to temporarily close the I-35 upper deck in Central Austin.
Grocery stores, after a brisk Monday when panicky shoppers had emptied some shelves and stood in long checkout lines in advance of the storm, mostly were open again Tuesday and much less crowded. Central Market officials said their two Austin stores were seeing some customers, including a noticeable uptick in Instacart shoppers hired by others to pick out and deliver groceries.
H-E-B stores, spokeswoman Leslie Sweet said Tuesday, “are all open and working hard to recover from yesterday, and keep our inventory moved up front and on the shelves.”