AUSTIN, Texas (CBSDFW.COM/AP) – Freezing winter weather in the US sent Texas into an unusually icy emergency Monday, Feb. 15, with more than 2 million people out of power and closing supermarkets and dangerously snowy roads.
The slow thaw and the more frigid lows that lay ahead also took their toll on the distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in Texas.
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The worsening conditions halted the supply of COVID-19 vaccine shipments and caused some suppliers in Texas to seek buyers for doses that passed within hours.
State health officials said Texas, which would receive more than 400,000 additional doses of vaccine this week, does not now expect the deliveries to take place until Wednesday.
But with the expiration of doses already in hand, Rice University abruptly began offering vaccines on Monday on its closed campus in Houston.
Harris Health System told the school it had about 1,000 vaccines that were “going to be lost,” and asked if the school could find buyers, said Doug Miller, a university spokesman.
‘The window was only a few hours. They need to take care of it quickly, ”said Miller.
Temperatures plunged as far south as San Antonio in the single-digit digits, and homes that had been without electricity for hours had no certainty about when the lights and heat would come back on as the state’s overwhelmed power grid turned into a rotating power outage smothered. usually only seen in summers of 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius).
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The storm was part of a massive system that brought snow, sleet and freezing rain to the southern plains and spread across the Ohio Valley and to the northeast. The Southwest Power Pool, a group of utilities in 14 states, called for rollout interruptions as reserves of reserve energy were exhausted. Some utilities said they started blackouts, while others urged customers to reduce power consumption.
“We’re experiencing a very historic event right now,” said Jason Furtado, a professor of meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, pointing to all of Texas with a winter storm warning and the magnitude of freezing temperatures.
In Houston, where provincial leaders had warned the freeze could cause problems on the scale of massive hurricanes slamming the Gulf Coast, an electricity supplier said power may not be restored to some homes until Tuesday.
“This weather event is truly unprecedented. We all know that, ”said Dan Woodfin, senior director of systems operations at Texas Electric Reliability Council. He defended the preparations of grid operators and described the demand for the system as a record.
“This event went well beyond the design parameters for a typical, or even extreme, Texas winter that you would normally plan. And that’s really the result we’re seeing, ”said Woodfin.
President Joe Biden also declared an emergency in Texas in a statement Sunday night. The statement aims to add federal support to state and local response efforts.
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(© Copyright 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All rights reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)