AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Thousands of frustrated Texans shivered in their homes on Thursday after the power went out for the second time. Mostly in booming Austin, hopes of a quick fix faded and harrowing memories of deadly power outages after the freezing winter storms of 2021 were revived.
At least 10 people died this week on slippery roads in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma, alleging freezing conditions. Even as Texas finally began to thaw on Thursday, a new Arctic front was moving from Canada toward the northern United States, threatening New England with the coldest weather in decades. It can drop below 50 degrees (minus 45 degrees Celsius).
In Austin, city officials likened damage from fallen trees and frozen power lines to a tornado, noting growing criticism of delayed repairs and delays in power restoration schedules.
Across Texas, more than 280,000 customers were without power as of Thursday night, according to PowerOutage.us. In Austin, where the blackout was the most extensive, there was growing impatience among 150,000 customers almost two days after the initial outage, and the heat was not even filling for many. The outage affected about 30% of customers in a city of about 1 million people at any point since Wednesday.
Alison Rizzolo, who lost power in Austin, told KEYE-TV that she wants more clarity from the city about what to do and what to expect.
For many Texans, it was the first time in three years that February frosts (Thursday wind chill and temperatures in the 30s) brought temperatures below freezing.
The power outage drags on and you never know when the lights will come back on.
Among those still without power as of Thursday was the Central Texas Food Bank, according to Travis County Judge Andy Brown, Travis County’s most elected official. School systems in the Dallas and Austin areas, as well as many in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Memphis, Tennessee, were closed Thursday as snow, sleet and freezing rain continued to percolate. In Austin, schools won’t open until next week at the earliest.
Hundreds of flights were canceled again in Texas, but not as many as the day before.
Airport crews fought the ice to keep the runway open. As of Thursday morning, the airline has canceled more than 500 of his flights at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. That’s more than a quarter of his total flights scheduled for the day. But that was down from about 1,300 cancellations on Wednesday and more than 1,000 on Tuesday, according to FlightAware.com.
Dozens more flights were canceled at Dallas Love Field and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.
Another cold wave in the United States looms on the horizon as the Arctic cold front moves from Canada into the northern plains and upper Midwest and is expected to move northeast by Friday.
At Thursday’s briefing with the Federal Weather Prediction Center, New Englanders said the minus 50s wind chill — the combined effect of wind and chill on exposed skin could be the coldest in decades.
