Biden declares a major disaster in Texas after crippling storm that’s left at least 30 people dead, 14 million without clean water and towns STILL without power after seven days
President Joe Biden has declared a major disaster in Texas where at least 30 people have died, 14million are without water and towns have been cut off from the electricity grid for seven days.
The move - announced on Saturday - makes federal funding available to individuals across the state, including assistance for temporary housing, home repairs and low-cost loans for losses on uninsured property.
The victims of the crisis include 11-year-old Cristian Pavon, who perished of hypothermia in his family's mobile home a day after he was pictured enjoying the snow - the first he had ever seen in his life.
Among the other dead are a man who reportedly froze to death in his recliner chair with his 'nearly dead' wife by his side; three children who perished in a fire as they huddled in a fireplace for warmth; and a mother and daughter died who from carbon monoxide poisoning as they bundled in their car in a garage.
Many of the deaths came as Texas Senator Ted Cruz and his family were packing their suitcases to fly to the $309-a-night Ritz-Carlton in Cancun where temperatures were 85F - compared to a low of -2F in Texas.
He later returned on Thursday after his actions provoked an outcry.
Rakeb Shelemu, seven, and her mother, Etenesh Mersha, died from carbon monoxide poisoning during the power outage in south-west Houston on Friday
Cristian Pavó, an 11-year-old boy who died in his unheated Texas home. The snow behind him (left) was the first time he had seen snow in his life. He died the next day
Colette, Edison, and Olivia Nguyen died on Friday alongside their grandmother after a fire at their house in Sugar Land on Friday. The children's father, Nathan, starts in an HBO show called House of Ho, which chronicles the lives of the members of a wealthy Vietnamese-American family living the American Dream in Houston
Volunteers stack cases of water during a water distribution event at the Fountain Life Center on Saturday in Houston
Elmo Houston waiting in line at St. Elmo Brewery in Austin for free drinking water on Saturday after many people lost their water supply
People wait for the Sam's Club store in Austin to open on Saturday as they look to purchase essentials during the weather crisis
Cristian's mother found him unresponsive, huddled under a pile of blankets, on Tuesday - after his home in Conroe lost power at the weekend and temperatures plunged to single digits. His stepfather had checked on him in the night.
The boy, who had no pre-existing conditions, was declared dead that afternoon. Just hours earlier, he'd been excited to see snow for the first time after moving to the US from Honduras in 2019 to live with his mom.
Home video footage taken by family on Monday shows him playing in the snow.
Other victims include 84-year-old Mary Gee, whose family said she froze to death in her home in Houston before a burglar robbed items from her apartment.
Over in Abilene, a man was found frozen to death Wednesday in his recliner chair and his wife was taken to hospital where she remains 'in peril' after suffering without power for several days.
Another man died at a health care facility in the city when a lack of water pressure made medical treatment impossible.
The three children who perished in a house fire in Sugar Land when they huddled in a fireplace to stay warm during power outages have now been named as Olivia, Edison and Colette Nguyen.
The siblings and their grandmother Le Loan died in the early hours of Tuesday morning during the blackouts.
Firefighters were called out around 2 am and tackled the blaze but the four victims were confirmed dead. The children's mom Jackie Nguyen and a friend were also injured and taken to hospital.
The children's father, Nathan, starts in an HBO show called House of Ho, which chronicles the lives of the members of a wealthy Vietnamese-American family living the American Dream in Houston.
In Houston, Etenesh Mersha and her 7-year-old daughter Rakeb Shelemu died from suspected carbon monoxide poisoning Monday after they huddled in their car in the garage for warmth amid a blackout in their home.
Etenesh's husband Ato Shalemu Bekele and their 8-year-old son Beimnet Shalemu were also rushed to hospital where the little boy was still in ICU two days later.
Wesley Crow, 57, collapsed and died in his old farmhouse just outside Santa Fe after he and his sister Laura were left for almost two days without power.
'He just collapsed, his eyes rolled up into his head and just stopped breathing,' Crow told ABC13.
Meanwhile, Carrol G Anderson died of hypothermia inside his car in 19F weather while driving to try and find an oxygen tank.
It comes as about 78,000 people in the state are still without power according to PowerOutage.US. Officials believe some lingering power outages could drag on for days.
Carrol G Anderson (pictured on the left with his wife, Gloria) died of hypothermia inside his car in 19F weather while driving to try and find an oxygen tank. Mary Gee (right) also died of hypothermia
A relative wrote on a Go Fund Me page for the Nguyen family, who lost three children and their grandmother: 'These angels were witty, funny, each with their owners funky and sassy attitudes, and each were extremely loved by me and the entire family'
President Joe Biden speaks to member of the media Friday after leaving Air Force One on Friday at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. Also pictured is Wesley Crow, 57, (right) died at home in Texas after going without power and heat for almost two days
Declaring a major disaster makes federal funding available to individuals across the state, including assistance for temporary housing and home repairs and low-cost loans for losses on uninsured property
President Biden said Friday that he hopes to travel to Texas next week but doesn't want his presence and the accompanying presidential entourage to distract from the recovery.
'They're working like the devil to take care of their folks,' Biden said of Texas officials. He said he'd make a decision early next week about travel.
Biden, who offered himself during the campaign as the experienced and empathetic candidate the nation needed at this moment in time, is working on several fronts to address the situation - and to avoid repeating the mistakes of predecessors who got tripped up by inadequate or insensitive responses in times of disaster.
Just this week, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas showed how quickly one bad move during a crisis can become a public relations disaster for a politician.
Cruz came under attack for traveling to Mexico while his constituents suffered without power, heat and running water. His explanation - that his daughters pushed for the getaway because they were out of school - was particularly panned. Cruz later said the trip was a mistake.
Biden has tweeted about Texas and the other affected states, while the White House has issued numerous statements aimed at demonstrating that the federal government is in command of the situation. The president is getting regular updates from his staff and already declared states of emergency in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana - adding the disaster designation announced Saturday for Texas.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has shipped dozens of generators and supplies, including fuel, water, blankets and ready-to-eat meals, to the affected areas.
Biden has spoken to the governors of the seven states most affected by the winter weather. He tweeted a photo of himself on the phone with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas.
The recent weather has the supply chain to stores causing many stores to run out of food supplies for customers. Pictured are shoppers at a Costco on Saturday
Huge queues form outside a Costco in Austin on Saturday following widespread power outages caused by a series of severe storms
Oklahoma´s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, a staunch supporter of Trump's, was quick to praise Biden for swift action on a disaster declaration.
After speaking with Biden by telephone earlier this week, Stitt specifically thanked the president for 'taking the time to reach out this afternoon and offer the federal government´s help for Oklahomans. We had a very productive call and I look forward to working together to find solutions as we recover from this historic storm.'
Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, said Biden is 'well-suited' to deal with the disaster because of his decades of service in the U.S. Senate and as a former vice president and because of 'his genuine concern for people.'
'He's got to show empathy right off the bat,' Perry said in an interview. 'It's important for a president to go to a place that´s been battered, but be careful about the footprint. He doesn´t want to make things worse.'
Biden, should he decide to visit Texas next week, could also use the trip to press his point that climate change is real and must not go unaddressed, and that the state could do things like winterize its power plants to be better prepared for future storms, Perry said.
But he should take care to not do so in a scolding kind of way.
'We know he cares about climate change, and this is a way to convince people,' Perry said.
Texans have seen electric bills surge as high as $17,000 after two powerful storms knocked out power.
Mark Maybou scrapes snow from a wall and piles it into a bucket to melt it into water in Austin on Friday
Cruz enraged his state by fleeing in the midst of the worst snow storms to hit Texas in decades
While most Texans are on a fixed rate plan on which they pay the same monthly amount throughout the duration of their contract, some are on a variable or indexed plan which sees rates vary based on the market.
One of these customers, Ty Williams, told WFAA-TV that his combined electric bill last month for his home, guest house, and office was $660.
As of this month, he owes more than $17,000. ‘How in the world can anyone pay that?’ Williams asked.
Meanwhile, temperatures as low as -2F have burst many of the state's water pipes, leaving residents forced to scrape snow off the walls to boil to make it safe for cooking and drinking.
Ty Williams was a subscriber with Griddy, the Houston-based wholesale electricity company that charges customers a monthly fee to connect members to the wholesale energy market.
He said: ‘I mean you go from a couple hundred dollars a month...there’s absolutely no way...it makes no sense.’
Unlike fixed-term pricing, Griddy charges customers based on fluctuations of the market, which could change minute to minute.
This week, Griddy took the unusual step of urging its customers to switch providers, knowing that the bills they would be charged would be exponentially higher than normal.
Volunteers unload bales of water at the Astros Youth Academy in Houston on Saturday as millions of people were left without water
Much of Texas is still struggling with historic cold weather, power outages and a shortage of potable water after winter storm Uri swept across 26 states
The surge reflects the real-time megawatt hour price of electricity and the cost of congestion and losses at different points across the grid.
Early on Monday, ERCOT said extreme weather conditions forced many power generating units off the grid, upending the supply of electricity.
ERCOT did not respond to an email message about the spike in wholesale electricity prices.
On February 10, well before inclement weather hit Texas, spot wholesale prices on ERCOT settled around $30 per megawatt hour at the end of the day, ERCOT data show.
But on Sunday, the price per megawatt hour surged past $9,000 on the grid.
ERCOT can be more susceptible to wholesale price spikes because it does not have a capacity market, which pays power plants to be on standby during peak demand and weather emergencies, for example.
ERCOT’s model means consumers are not paying for generation that may never be called into action.
But early on Monday, ERCOT said extreme weather conditions caused many generating units - across all fuel types - to trip offline and become unavailable.
That forced more than 30,000 megawatts of power generation off the grid, ERCOT said in a news release.
Griddy released a statement on its web site saying the company was also ‘p****d’ about the price surge.
The company blamed the Public Utility Commission of Texas, the agency that regulates the nonprofit ERCOT.
Earlier this week the PUC issued an order mandating that ERCOT keep pricing at $9,000 per Megawatt.
Containers are filled with non-potable water at a water distribution site in Houston on Friday. The city's 2.3 million residents have been told by the mayor to boil water due to safety concerns
Water is loaded into the trunk of a car at a City of Houston water distribution site on Friday
Shane Morning checks the pipes under his house for leaks while his neighbor (not pictured) turns on the home's water following an unprecedented winter storm in Houston on Friday
Some 14 million Texans continue to experience water outages, forcing residents to scrape snow off walls and boil it for drinking water while hundreds of motorists wait in line outside a Houston stadium to get bottled water.
The disrupted water service left many longing for a hot shower just as the state's power grid jerked back to life after five days of blackouts.
All the state's power plants were functioning again, although more than 70,000 homes remained without electricity on Saturday morning.
As of Thursday afternoon, more than 1,000 Texas public water systems and 177 of the state's 254 counties had reported weather-related operational disruptions, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
With power back on, officials hope to replenish the state's water supply.
Experts said the dangerously low water levels posed a threat to residents who needed to boil water in order to do mundane tasks like brushing their teeth, cooking, or drinking.
The situation has inflicted yet more misery throughout the state.
Some residents returned to homes only to find that the ceilings had collapsed because of water pipes that burst as a result of the record low, sub-freezing temperatures that engulfed the region over the course of the past week.
In Austin, hospital staffers were forced to use trash bags to vacate waste from the toilets while not being able to wash their hands or take a shower because of a lack of water.
Tyler Riese, a plumber, reaches underneath a house in Houston to investigate a pipe, which burst after freezing
Contractors remove material from a ceiling in a recently-purchased home that sustained water damage due to busted pipes in Houston on Friday
Jim Curtis helps a woman search for a way to shut off her water after she found a leak following an unprecedented winter storm in Houston
More than two dozen sick patients who had been hospitalized in the state capital had to be transferred to other facilities as temperatures in hallways and patient rooms plummeted and frigid conditions took hold due to a lack of heat, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
'Out of caution, yesterday we transported approximately 30 patients who were either vulnerable or could easily be cared for at another facility,' David Huffstutler, the CEO of St. David's HealthCare, said in an email on Thursday.
'We continue to work with the City of Austin in an effort to resolve the water outage, but they have been unsuccessful in resolving the water system issue affecting service and water pressure to our hospital.'
St. David's South Austin Medical Center on Wednesday reported a loss of heat and water pressure. Officials there said they were taking steps to get water to the hospital.
Huffstutler said water tank trucks have been deployed to three hospitals - St. David’s South Austin Medical Center, St. David’s Medical Center and Heart Hospital of Austin - to connect and pressurize their systems due to water outages and low pressure.
'While the duration of this issue remains unknown at this time, all St. David's HealthCare facilities are prepared to handle the situation and have a sufficient supply of water to help ensure that we can continue to provide our patients with exceptional care,' he said.
More than 1 million gallons of water was being trucked Friday to the Texas capital.
But Austin's water director, Greg Meszaros, implored residents to minimize the use of home faucets because 'there's still a lot of unknowns as we pressurize the system.'
According to Meszaros, 325 million gallons of water have been lost due to burst pipes - and that's just in Austin alone.
'We know that there are tens of thousands of leaks,' Meszaros told CNN.
'As the fire department indicated they have responded to thousands upon thousands of burst pipes.'
In Dallas, David Lopez said the plumbing company he works for received more than 600 calls for service over the last week.
'It's pretty much first come, first served,' said Lopez, as he and a colleague manhandled a new water heater out of their van on Friday.
'Everyone's got emergencies.'
Houston residents probably will have to boil tap water in the fourth-largest American city until Sunday or Monday, said Mayor Sylvester Turner.
Water service was restored Friday to two Houston Methodist community hospitals, but officials were still bringing in drinking water and some elective surgeries were canceled, spokeswoman Gale Smith said.
The winter storm has been blamed for more than 30 deaths in Texas and 58 across the country.
Lang Le fills up a container of water at the Georgetown Community Center in Austin on Friday as the crisis continued
City of Austin Water Utility workers Joey Putman, front, and Salvador Tinajero repair a broken water main near 11th and Red River streets in Austin on Friday
The image above shows water trickling from a fire hydrant as utility workers in the background repair a broken water main in Austin on Friday
A warming trend is expected to relieve some of the pressure on the region on Saturday, the National Weather Service said.
'One more night of below freezing temperatures at some areas, then a warm up is expected into the weekend,' the weather service's Houston office wrote on Twitter on Friday.
Bitter cold weather and snow have paralyzed Texas since Sunday, shutting down much of the state's electricity grid and freezing pipes and waterways, leaving communities across the state either without water altogether or forced to boil it for safety.
Monday was the third coldest day since record keeping began, according to Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, with a statewide average temperature of 16.7 degrees Fahrenheit, citing records dating back to 1899.
That same day, temperatures in the state capital Austin dropped below those in parts of Alaska.
Jennifer Jordan, 54, of Midlothian just south of Dallas, said she and her husband were without power even though the family's online account with the provider indicated their issues had been 'resolved.'
'I have no power at my house - not one drop of power,' the high school special-education teacher said in an interview.
'It's really hard. You are really longing to get a hot shower, eat a hot meal.'
Empty shelves are seen at snack section in Fiesta supermarket after winter weather caused food and clean water shortage in Houston on Friday
Houston residents probably will have to boil tap water in the fourth-largest US city until Sunday or Monday, said Mayor Sylvester Turner
A shopper grabs one of the few remaining packages of bottled water in a Houston supermarket on Friday
Subscribers with Griddy, the Houston-based wholesale energy company, reported that they were being billed thousands of dollars
Electricity bills for many homeowners in Texas skyrocketed this week, including one who had to pay $7,660.93 for the first three weeks of February. One electricity customer was charged $5,665.81 so far this month (right)
But even as services in many neighborhoods return, broken pipes and other damage continue to render some homes uninhabitable.
In Houston on Friday, plumbers worked on Friday to repair pipes that froze and ruptured in Drew Ainscough's 1920s bungalow, damaging several rooms.
Water service has been returned to his block, but remains turned off for their home as repairs continue.
'Right now, we're not really able to live in there,' said the 33-year-old engineer, who has been staying with his in-laws for the past several days.
'Hopefully, by this weekend we'll be able to have everything cleaned up enough.'
In parts of the state, frozen roads remained impassable. Ice-downed lines and other issues had utility workers scrambling to reconnect homes to power, while oil and gas producers look for ways to renew output.
Hospitals in some hard-hit areas ran out of water and transferred patients elsewhere. Millions of people were ordered to boil their drinking water after water-treatment plants lost power, which could allow harmful bacteria to proliferate.
In Houston, a mass distribution of bottled water opened at Delmar Stadium on Friday, the city's Office of Emergency Management said.
A worker waits to load cases of water into vehicles at a City of Houston water distribution site on Friday
The drive-thru stadium location was setup to provide bottled water to individuals who need water while the city remains under a boil water notice or because they lack water at home due to frozen or broken pipes
The image above shows cars lined up in the drive-thru location at a parking lot at a Houston stadium where water was being distributed
Around midday, the line of cars waiting to enter the stadium stretched for at least half a mile, one police officer told Reuters.
Speaking at the stadium distribution site, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said the city aimed to distribute more than 1 million bottles of water to its residents on Friday and that another mass distribution would take place on Saturday.
A boil-water order for the city might be lifted as soon as Monday, he said.
Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in Harris County, which encompasses Houston, said she was pleased with progress, but warned residents to brace for more hardship.
'The grid is still fragile,' she said, noting cold weather would persist for a few days, which would 'put pressure on these power plants that have just come back on.'
President Joe Biden said he would accelerate federal emergency assistance for Texas and had directed his administration to identify other resources to help the state.
Biden said he would meet with the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on Friday and ask him to issue a major disaster declaration to speed up aid.
'God willing, it will bring a lot of relief to a lot of Texans,' Biden told reporters at the White House.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott confirmed that all power-generating plants were online as of Thursday afternoon.
He urged lawmakers to pass legislation to ensure the grid was prepared for cold weather in the future.
'What happened this week to our fellow Texans is absolutely unacceptable and can never be replicated again,' Abbott told an afternoon news conference.
A pedestrian in Houston on Friday walks by a sign denouncing Senator Ted Cruz of Texas after he flew to Cancun while the state was in the grip of a major crisis
The digital billboard on the truck shows an image of Cruz wearing a sombrero hat while drinking a Corona beer
The governor lashed out at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), a cooperative responsible for 90 per cent of the state's electricity, which he said had told officials before the storm that the grid was prepared.
ERCOT officials have defended their preparations and the decision to begin forced outages Monday as the grid reached a breaking point.
Officials said during a press call on Friday that ERCOT has enough generation in its system to return to normal operations.
'I really want to acknowledge this immense human suffering we saw throughout this event,' ERCOT Chief Executive Bill Magness said at a news conference on Friday.
'When people lose power, there are heartbreaking consequences.'
Two community hospitals that are part of the Houston Methodist system in Texas' largest city had to get 'creative' when their water supply was cut off this week, said Public Relations Director Stefanie Asin.
A shower trailer was brought in for frigid, exhausted staff, and laundry bins were deployed to collect rainwater to flush toilets.
As of Friday, water service had been restored at those hospitals, Asin said in an interview.
'The water will be challenging,' she said.
We've handled it so far, we'll continue handling it. ... But we'll still need to take precautions.'
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