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Image source,Reuters
Last week, Texas suffered the worst weather in 30 years, with power and water outages.
In recent days, the state of Texas in the United States has been affected by a rare snow storm and the situation has not yet been completely alleviated due to water and power cuts. US President Biden announced that Texas has entered a state of major disaster, clearing the way for the approval of more federal aid funds.
Although power will be restored in parts of Texas by Saturday (February 20) and temperatures are about to rise, about 13 million people still have difficulty accessing clean water.
Biden said that if relief work is not hampered, he will visit the local area in person next week to learn of the latest situation.
Almost 60 people have died in the cold snap in the United States.
Biden also spoke with the mayors of major cities in Texas, Houston, Austin and Dallas to make sure they can use government resources.
Several other southern states have been affected by the recent severe cold weather, among which hundreds of thousands of residents in Mississippi and Tennessee have been affected by water supply problems.
Some areas of the southern United States suffered from rare ice and snow, and water pipes froze and some residents had to boil snow water to drink.
What happened in Texas?
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Earlier this week, Texas, located in the southwestern United States, experienced the coldest weather in 30 years, with temperatures dropping to minus 18 degrees Celsius. Due to the sudden increase in residential heating power, the electricity grid is not overloaded and power outages have occurred.
As of yesterday (19), there were still about 180,000 homes and businesses without power, while as of earlier this week, 3.3 million Texans were without power.
Additionally, due to the freezing of the water supply system, approximately half of Texas’ population (13 million) faces water supply problems. Among them, Houston, the largest city in Texas, received a warning from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that drinking water should be boiled, including filtered water, to avoid contamination.
Texas officials said they are striving to provide bottled water and generators to those in need as soon as possible.
However, officials said they could not provide a timetable for the restoration of the full water supply because it depends on the local water supplier, and many units have not yet fully assessed the damage to their water supply system.
Because many water pipes in Texas were damaged by freezing and cracking, the supply of local plumbers was in short supply, so they contacted the plumbers outside to rescue them.
There was still a storm warning in Texas last Friday, but according to the National Weather Service, the temperature will rebound in the next few days.
However, the Bureau of Meteorology has warned that there will still be snowstorms in the eastern United States, which are expected to bring heavy snowfall, freezing rain and freezing weather. At that time, it will bring danger and inconvenience to people’s travel, and there may be power outages.
Additionally, during the Texas blizzard, Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz was criticized for leaving Houston on vacation with his family in Mexico.
Cruz apologized for this on Thursday (18) and returned to the United States to end his plan to spend the weekend in Mexico with his family early.
Texas StormSnow stormHow serious is it?
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The severe cold caused the water pipe to break and people lived on bottled water or boiled the water before drinking it.
The snowstorm caused many deaths in Texas, including some in traffic accidents, while others died from carbon monoxide poisoning due to the use of the engine to heat the car and interior.
In Harris County, Houston, there are more than 300 suspected incidents of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Houston officials said at least four people were killed in a house fire caused by burning candles.
Local police also found two dead men on the Houston highway and said they were estimated to be frozen to death.
Some other deaths include:
- An 11-year-old boy died frozen in a motor home
- A 75-year-old Vietnam War veteran died in a truck after running out of oxygen cylinders and searching for replacement oxygen cylinders.
- Two men died at home
- A man died in a parking lot.
Harris County Sheriff Gonzalez stressed that the weather is not only severe, but also deadly.
