Thousands of Texans endure winter storm without power
AUSTIN, Texas — Thousands of frustrated Texans shivered in their homes Thursday after more than a day without power, including many in the state capital, as an icy winter storm that has been blamed for at least 10 traffic deaths lingered across much of the Southern U.S.
A warming trend was expected to bring some relief later Thursday — just in time for an Arctic front to drop from Canada and threaten Northern states with the coldest weather in decades. Wind chills could dive lower than minus 50.
Across Texas, 430,000 customers lacked power Thursday, according to poweroutage.us. But the failures were most widespread in Austin, where frustration mounted among more than 156,000 customers over 24 hours after losing electricity, which for many also meant their heat. Power failures have affected about 30% of customers in the city at any given time since Wednesday.
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. The city’s utility warned power may not be fully restored until Friday as ice continued causing outages.
“It feels like two steps forward and three steps back,” said Jackie Sargent, general manager of Austin Energy.
School systems in the Dallas and Austin areas, plus many in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee, closed Thursday as snow, sleet and freezing rain continued to push through. Public transportation in Dallas also experienced “major delays” early Thursday, according to a statement from Dallas Area Rapid Transit.
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.
At least 10 people have died due to treacherous road conditions since Monday, including seven in Texas, two in Oklahoma and one in Arkansas. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott urged people not to drive.