STORM PUTS AREA IN ICY GRIP
Sub-freezing temps leave one dead; warm-up is on way
A rare winter storm brought the Houston region to a virtual standstill Tuesday, bringing sub-freezing temperatures that left one person dead and icy roads that caused hundreds of accidents even as most of area schools, governments and businesses closed their doors for the day.
Faced with continuing frigid temperatures through at least midday Wednesday, dozens of school districts, colleges and agencies announced another round of closures as officials called for Houstonians to give the weather — and the roads — one more day to warm up.
“It makes no sense to put your employees in harm’s way unless its absolutely necessary that they be at work,” Harris County Judge Ed Emmett said late Tuesday.
Mayor Sylvester Turner urged residents to stay off the roads until the ice begins to thaw.
“If you don’t have to be on the road, please don’t be on the roads,” Turner said. “For the next 24 hours it’s going to be somewhat treacher-
ous out there.”
The winter storm sent an icy mix across much of South, Central and East Texas, closing schools from Galveston to Austin, San Antonio, Waco and Tyler along with most of the state’s major universities.
The storm moved through the Houston region during the day Tuesday, sending temperatures into the 20s as sleet, snow and freezing rain blanketed the area with a thin but dangerous layer of ice. Temperatures early Wednesday were expected to plummet again into the 20s — levels not seen in January since 1996.
The record low for Houston on Jan. 17 came in 1930, when temperatures dropped to 15 degrees.
Across the region, nearly 100,000 CenterPoint customers lost power, but almost all had been restored by Tuesday evening.
But sunshine is in the forecast. The National Weather Service in Houston predicted Wednesday would be sunny with a high near 40, and warming temperatures the rest of the week could push Sunday to near 70, albeit with rain.
Warming centers open
Dozens of schools districts — including Houston, Cypress-Fairbanks, Katy, Humble and Pasadena — closed for a second day on Wednesday, adding to the missed days this school year caused by severe weather. Local universities — including the University of Houston and Texas Southern University — also remained closed Wednesday.
The Houston Fire Department remained busy, responding to more than 450 calls in 17 hours, Chief Samuel Pena said. Officials warned residents to take extra care with space heaters and to avoid using extension cords.
The brutal cold sent at least two people to the hospital with hypothermia, and one man, who was believed
to have been homeless, was found dead on the city’s south side near in the 6700 block of Telephone Road near Bellfort.
About 400 people arrived at two warming centers set up by the American Red Cross at South Main Baptist
Church and Pleasant Missionary Grove Baptist Church. The Houston Police Department also spent part of Tuesday offering to give free rides to Houstonians living in encampments near Minute Maid Park — an effort that Chief Art Acevedo
said ended with many “having a change of heart and agreeing to be transported.”
Still, officials said many remained in harm’s way Tuesday night.
“We still have a number of people who are on our streets, and we want to get them off the streets and into a warmer environment,” Turner said.
Stay home today
Nearly 400 vehicle accidents were reported on Harris County roadways, including more than two dozen major accidents, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said.
Houston alone had more than 300 accidents throughout the day, prompting Acevedo to join other Texas officials in pleading for drivers to stay off of the roads.
“Driving conditions are extremely treacherous around the entire region right now,” he wrote on Twitter about 2 p.m., citing a 1,000-foot stretch of where the chief said he saw a halfdozen accidents.
Texas Department of Transportation officials said they had dozens of crews working around the clock in the Houston area to de-ice roadways, working first to reopen freeways closed by the icy conditions. At least 100 roadways were impacted by icy conditions, with 20 of them impassable, TxDOT officials said.
Thoroughfares like Texas 225 and the Fred Hartman Bridge over the Houston Ship Channel were particularly icy, TxDOT officials said.
In Fort Bend County, authorities closed portions of major highways Tuesday, including the Grand Parkway, Southwest Freeway and Westpark Tollway.
“All things considered, things have been going rather well in Fort Bend County,” Fort Bend County Judge Bob Hebert said. “We responded to it right — by we, I mean everybody.”
Fort Bend County offices and courts will be closed again on Wednesday, and all non-essential employees were told to remain home.
Hospitals in the Texas Medical Center remained operational, though some also sent home non-essential employees. Some elective procedures and clinic appoints were canceled.
Is winter over?
Good news appears to be ahead. Nearly five months after Hurricane Harvey and one month after the Bayou City residents awoke to their first snowfall in years, this week’s chilly temperatures are expected to the last bit of winter in Houston this season, said Eric Berger, a Houston meteorologist who writes for the popular Space City Weather blog.
“The second half of this month does appear likely to be noticeably warmer than our cold start to 2018,” Berger wrote recently. “While there are always caveats about long-range forecasts, it seems that the pattern will change, with more of the colder air getting shunted off to the east before diving south all of the way to the Gulf Coast.”