2021-02-15 08:00:00
Austin. A cold snap is believed to have killed two people in the US state of Texas. There was a power outage for more than four million people. At least on Tuesday, many houses could not be heated, the authorities said. The consequences of the cold wave were even felt in Mexico.
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An Arctic cold front has large parts of the USA under its control. The Governor of Kansas, Laura Kelly, declared a state of disaster with temperatures around minus 34 degrees Celsius. Likewise, Governor Greg Abbott for all of Texas. US President Joe Biden created the conditions for additional federal aid by declaring an emergency for Texas on Sunday evening. In addition, National Guard units were activated in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas to help stranded drivers.
Snow and ice in the USA too
Winter storm warnings were in effect for most of the Gulf Coast region, Oklahoma and Missouri.
© Quelle: Archyde.com
Vaccine deliveries stopped
The delivery of coronavirus vaccines came to a standstill. 3,000 flights were canceled, 1,600 of them at Dallas/Fort Worth and Bush Intercontinental airports in Houston. Both airports were closed on Monday until at least Tuesday afternoon (local time). The largest refinery in the USA in Port Arthur also closed due to the cold. Temperatures of around minus 15 degrees Celsius were measured in Dallas/Fort Worth. That was three degrees less than in Moscow.
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The two bodies were found along roads in the Houston area. The cause of death has not yet been determined, but authorities believe they died due to low temperatures. The cold goes beyond even the extreme scenarios that Texas has prepared for, said the operations manager of the grid operator Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Dan Woodfin.
Cold record in Minnesota
In Houston, more than 500 people warmed up in shelters. Some warming rooms had to be closed because there was no heating there either due to power outages, as Mayor Sylvester Turner said. In Austin and San Antonio, supermarkets had to close because municipalities didn’t have enough machines to clear the streets.
In Minnesota, a cold record of minus 39 degrees was measured in Hibbings/Chisholm, and in Sioux Falls/South Dakota the thermometer dropped to minus 26 degrees.
Most government offices and schools were closed on Presidents Day, a holiday honoring all U.S. presidents. Nevertheless, numerous traffic accidents were reported, 75 in Louisiana alone, which were attributed to the weather conditions. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear warned against unnecessary trips: “It’s slippery and dangerous.”
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The cold snap hit the U.S. during a long weekend with the most air travel since the turn of the year. More than a million people passed through airport security checkpoints on Thursday and Friday. That was still less than half the number from a year ago, before the coronavirus pandemic spread in the United States.
Almost five million people without electricity
In northern Mexico, almost five million people temporarily had no electricity because natural gas pipelines from Texas froze. The first gas power plants had to be shut down on Sunday evening, the Mexican electricity service said. Mexico gets about 60 percent of its electricity from natural gas.
According to the information, around 65 percent of the customers affected by the power outage in the states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas were restored during Monday. The electric service tried to rely on other energy sources such as coal and hydropower and increasingly imported electricity from the USA.
RND/AP
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