17-02-21, 10:27
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re: Senator Ted Cruz Goes to Mexico as Texans Freeze with NO Power/Water & Dwindling Food
US Big Freeze Brings Deadly Chaos
Millions without power and 21 dead as ferocious winter weather sweeps US
The Guardian, 17 FEB, 2021.
Ferocious winter weather sweeping across large parts of the central and southern US has brought record-breaking cold temperatures, left millions without power and killed at least 21 people across multiple states.
The worst power outages were in Texas, where more than 4m homes and businesses remained without power on Tuesday in subfreezing temperatures. Elsewhere more than 250,000 people also lost power across parts of Appalachia, and 4 million people lost power in Mexico. Another quarter-million were without electricity following an ice storm in north-west Oregon.
In North Carolina, three people were found dead after a tornado hit a seaside town, while in Texas, four family members perished in a Houston-area house fire while using a fireplace to stay warm. Others deaths occurred in states such as Louisiana, Kentucky and Missouri, from causes that included car crashes and carbon monoxide poisoning.
The storms overwhelmed power grids and immobilized the southern plains, carried heavy snow and freezing rain into New England and the deep south, and brought painfully low temperatures. Wind-chill warnings extended from Canada into Mexico. In Chicago, a foot and a half (46cm) of new snow forced public schools to cancel in-person classes for Tuesday. Snow even reached the normally balmy coastline of the Gulf of Mexico.
Storms dumped snow and ice from Ohio to the Rio Grande through the long Presidents Day holiday weekend, and treacherous weather was expected to grip much of the United States through Friday. Forecasters predicted up to 4in of snow and freezing rain from the southern plains into the north-east.
The weather also threatened to affect the nation’s Covid-19 vaccination effort. Joe Biden’s administration said delays in vaccine shipments and deliveries were likely.
Officials in Texas have faced criticism as the state energy grid repeatedly failed, forcing rolling blackouts. As utilities attempted to restore power to homes that lacked it while offices in downtown Houston remained lit up, the Harris county judge Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in the city, told the Guardian: “History is going to remember who did their part and who didn’t.”
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