San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Warming brings relief to coldweary states
DALLAS — Higher temperatures spread across the southern United States on Saturday, bringing some relief to a winter weary region that faces a challenging cleanup and expensive repairs from days of extreme cold and widespread power outages.
In hardhit Texas, where millions were warned to boil tap water before drinking it, the warmup was expected to last for several days. The freeze burst pipes throughout the region, adding to the list of woes from severe conditions that were blamed for more than 70 deaths.
The sun came out in Dallas on Saturday, and temperatures were nearing the 50s. People emerged to walk and jog in residential neighborhoods after days indoors. Many roads had dried out and patches of snow were melting. Snowmen slumped.
Deaths attributed to the weather include a man at an Abilene health care facility where the lack of water pressure made medical treatment impossible. Officials also reported deaths from hypothermia, including homeless people and those inside buildings with no power or heat. Others died in car accidents on icy roads or from suspected carbon monoxide poisoning.
A Tennessee farmer died trying to save two calves from a frozen pond.
President Biden’s office said Saturday that he had declared a major disaster in Texas, directing federal agencies to help in the recovery.
Rep. Alexandria OcasioCortez, a New York Democrat, tweeted Saturday that she helped raise more than $3 million toward relief, and was assisting at a Houston food bank, one of 12 Texas organizations she said would benefit from the money.
The storms left more than 300,000 still without power across the country Saturday, many of them in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. More than 50,000 Oregon electricity customers were also among those without power, more than a week after an ice storm ravaged the electrical grid. Oregon Gov. Kate Brown ordered the National Guard to go doortodoor in some areas to check on residents’ welfare. At its peak, what was the worst ice storm in 40 years knocked out power to more than 350,000.
In West Virginia, Appalachian Power in West Virginia was working on a list of about 1,500 places that needed repair, as about 44,000 customers in the state remained without electricity after experiencing backtoback ice storms Feb. 11 and Feb. 15. More than 3,200 workers were attempting to get power back online, their efforts spread across the six most affected counties on Saturday.
In Jackson, Miss., most of the city of about 161,000 lacked running water, and officials blamed city water mains that are more than 100 years old and not built for freezing weather.
The Saturday thaw after 11 days of freezing temperatures in Oklahoma City left residents with burst water pipes, inoperable wells and furnaces knocked out of operation by brief power blackouts.
Firefighters extinguished a blaze at a fully occupied, 102room hotel in Killeen, Texas, about 70 miles north of Austin, late Friday. The hotel’s sprinkler system didn’t work because of frozen pipes, authorities said.
Flames shot from the top of the fourstory hotel and three people required medical care. Displaced guests were taken to a nearby church.
Texas electrical grid operators said electricity transmission returned to normal after the historic snowfall and singledigit temperatures created a surge in demand that buckled the state’s system.
Smaller outages remained, but Bill Magness, president of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, said the grid now can provide power throughout the system.