As hundreds of thousands of Texans struggle for heat and water because of utility outages for a fifth consecutive day, more potentially deadly storms are hitting parts of the South -- and slamming the mid-Atlantic and Northeast -- with snow and ice.
Winter weather alerts stretch from Texas, where snow and ice still was accumulating in places Thursday morning, to southern New England. Thursday's heaviest snow is expected from parts of Virginia to southern Pennsylvania, and dangerous stretches of ice in North Carolina and the Washington, DC, and Philadelphia areas, forecasters say.
At least 37 people have died nationwide from winter storms or frigid conditions since last week. And in Texas, communities are desperately seeking warmth and other necessities without electricity in freezing or near-freezing temperatures.
In the Texas city of Killeen, Angel Garcia and her family had been trying to keep warm in their powerless home by burning things -- including her daughter's toy blocks -- in a fireplace after running out of firewood, she told CNN on Wednesday evening.
"A lot of people don't know the severity of what's going on. People are tearing down their fences to burn," Garcia said, between tears.
"We started burning my daughter's little wooden blocks because it was just too cold."
She said she's also been rationing pre-filled oxygen cylinders for her 5-month-old preemie son, unable to use a machine that converts room air because the home has been without power since Monday.
Around 490,000 Texas homes and businesses still were without power Thursday, down from around 4.5 million earlier in the week, according to utility tracker PowerOutage.us.
Weather also has helped knock out power to a further 600,000 customers in several other states including Oregon, Louisiana, Mississippi, Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia and North Carolina, according to PowerOutage.us.
Texas officials say a deep freeze starting Sunday crippled utilities' power generation, causing rolling blackouts or continuous outages. The issues affect a Texas-only grid that covers 90% of the state and is isolated from the rest of the country, so the grid cannot import power from elsewhere to make up for the shortage.
Days without power in freezing conditions have sent Texans scrambling for alternative heating, through generators, fireplaces, living in running cars, or sheltering in powered warming centers or businesses.
Millions of Texans also are facing water disruptions, with boil-water notices, broken pipes and failing systems, state officials said. The cities of Austin and San Antonio issued boil-water notices to their 2.5 million residents on Wednesday evening.
Difficult weather conditions across the country, meanwhile, have had serious implications for the coronavirus pandemic: Some shipments of Covid-19 vaccines have been delayed, andsome clinics have had to cancel vaccine appointments.
Here's what the National Weather Service says to expect from Thursday's storms:
- Snow across the mid-Atlantic states, with the heaviest -- about 6-12 inches -- possible from the Appalachians of Virginia and West Virginia to northern Maryland and southern Pennsylvania.
- Snow also should hit the Northeast in the afternoon and night, with 3-6 inches possible from downstate New York to southern New England.
- Dangerous ice accumulations -- up to three-quarters of an inch -- are possible from North Carolina's northern Piedmont region to southern Virginia, threatening extensive power line and tree damage and treacherous roads.
- Up to a quarter-inch of ice also could accumulate around the Interstate 95 corridor from Washington, DC, to Philadelphia.
- Heavy rain is expected in parts of the Southeast, and tornadoes and flash floods are possible.
Texans struggle to find supplies
Even when Texans have been able to turn to heating alternatives, some have been struggling to find the firewood, food, water and other needed supplies.
In San Antonio, Claudia Lemus said power returned to her home Wednesday night -- but many stores' shelves were empty.
"We're able to get enough to get by ... but the grocery stores, most of them shut down," Lemus told CNN's Jim Sciutto on Thursday morning. "And when we tried the few that are open, you have to stand in line for 20-30 minutes at a time, and then you just go in and get whatever is available, because stores are (largely) empty."
Another Texan family, faced with a home with no electricity, opted to drive more than 200 miles through snow and ice, for shelter.
The normally two-and-a-half-hour drive turned into a five- or six-hour trek, said Bryce Smith. He said the one thing that made the drive from Austin to Royce City possible was that he's from Iowa -- and knows how to drive in the snow.
"There are no plows here. There is no help at all. You go out here and it's just fresh snow and ice. There's no sand down," he said.
Sylvia Cerda Salinas, a Texas mother, told CNN's Don Lemon on Wednesday night she was considering driving to Mexico to keep her family safe in a hotel. With another freeze expected, she said she was running out of options for three of her children whose insulin supplies were spoiling.
"You either go to the shelter to get warm, or you stay home, stay cold, and stay away from the pandemic," Salinas said.
Texas' major grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, said Thursday that although utilities have made progress in restoring power, more rolling outages may be needed in the coming days to keep the grid stable.
Outages and slick roads in the South and East
In the Louisiana city of Shreveport, some water main lines burst this week during freezing rain and other wintry weather -- forcing boil-water advisories and leaving some hospitals needing special water deliveries to keep their heating systems running.
A local oilfield services provider, CNC Oilfield Services, delivered water to five hospitals and nursing homes, company representative Colton Sanders said Thursday.
In Kentucky, winter storms this week have damaged utility infrastructure to the extent that some households might not see power restored until after Friday, state officials said.
The weather has also knocked out water plants in many places in Texas, including Marlin, a town with a population of more than 5,500 residents.
Speaking of residents' frustration, Marlin City Manager Cedric Davis said "They are cussing us, calling us names, saying they don't understand, they don't understand. We cried last night. We are giving it our all. People are so inhumane. They don't understand. I've never seen anything like it," the Waco Tribune-Herald reported.
Dozens of weather-related deaths over a week
Dozens of deaths have been reported across the country in the past week, linked to cold conditions or weather-related wrecks.
Texas has lost 16 residents to weather-related incidents, with causes including exposure to cold, carbon monoxide poisoning and vehicle wrecks. The rest of the toll is spread across Tennessee, Oregon, Kentucky, North Carolina, Louisiana, Ohio, Oklahoma and Arkansas.
Risk of carbon monoxide poisoning rises when people turn to unusual sources of heat or power during electricity outages, such as running generators or vehicles in enclosed spaces. Carbon monoxide is a tasteless, odorless gas that can build up when any type of fossil fuel is burned -- gasoline, coal or natural gas.
In Oregon -- where some areas may receive several more inches of snow Thursday -- four adults died of carbon monoxide poisoning while trying to stay warm from Saturday to Monday, the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office said. One person appears to have ignited charcoal briquettes inside while three others were sheltering in recreational vehicles.
While Kentucky officials have responded to calls regarding carbon monoxide, state police reported Wednesday that a 25-year-old was found Friday dead as a result of hypothermia.
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