At least 11 deaths have been linked to a dangerous winter storm system breaking records nationwide. About four million homes and businesses in Texas were without power early Tuesday as the electrical system struggled to meet demand, poweroutage.us said.
The dead included a woman and a girl who were sitting in an attached garage in Houston where a car was driving because there was no heat in the house due to lack of power, the CBS affiliate there, KHOU-TV reports. Authorities said they contracted carbon monoxide poisoning. This also applied to a man and a boy from the same family, who were hospitalized. There was no word about their condition.
In Fort Worth, two people were in critical condition and one was in severe condition from what was believed to be carbon monoxide poisoning, CBS Dallas reports. A child was also among those who were conquered, but it was said to be in good condition.
Also in Texas, a 78-year-old man died after falling on his lawn and standing in the cold for two hours.
A tornado produced by the same storm system tore through southeastern North Carolina early Tuesday, killing at least three people.
Authorities say two people were killed in Tennessee, two in Kentucky and one in Louisiana.
Abilene, Texas tweeted that it was “shutting off water due to power outages from both power sources at all three of the city’s water treatment plants.” It was not known when the service would be restored.
The record cold snap turned Texas into a tundra. Flashes fell in South Texas, covering the sandy beaches of Galveston in white. The Galveston city administrator warned that infrastructure damage caused by the extreme temperatures could rival the cost of a hurricane.
AP Photo / David J. Phillip
Frozen roads left an 18-wheeler out of control near Austin. A man nearly lost his life and jumped out of the way seconds before a car lost control and collided with a police cruiser.
“The ultra-low temperatures will last for several days, meaning that whatever gets frozen will remain frozen for a long period of time,” said Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
He tweeted that the National Guard had been “deployed statewide to move vulnerable Texans to warm shelters.”
The historic storm also caused problems across the country.
Firefighters in Vermont rescued a young man from icy waters after falling through the ice. Tennessee’s roads turned into ice rinks after the frozen precipitation fell. In Little Rock, Arkansas, cars stopped on a slippery highway, trapping nurses just leaving their shifts.
The temperature in parts of Oklahoma fell below 20 degrees for the third time ever for five consecutive days. While another storm was approaching, the crews worked to clear snow as quickly as possible.
In Louisiana, the cold caused a transformer to explode and a fireball to rip through power lines.
The agency that oversees the Texas power grid has declared the highest level of emergency in more than a decade.
The power outages also complicate the fight against the pandemic. After a medical facility that stored vaccines in Houston lost power, medical officials tried to use them before spoiling.
Sue Ogrocki / AP
additional reporting by Brian Dakss