OCEAN ISLE BEACH, NC (AP) – A winter storm that left millions without electricity in a record cold weather has claimed more lives, including three people found dead after a tornado struck a coastal city in North Carolina and four family members who died from the Houston area house fire while using the fireplace to keep you warm.
The storm that overflowed the power grids and immobilized the southern plains on Tuesday brought heavy snowfall and freezing rain in New England and the deep south and left behind painfully low temperatures. Cold warnings spread from Canada to Mexico.
In all, at least 20 deaths were reported. Other causes were: car accidents and carbon monoxide poisoning. The weather also threatened to affect the nation’s COVID-19 vaccination effort. President Joe Biden’s administration said delays in vaccine shipments and deliveries are likely.
Brunswick County, North Carolina, did not notice much of the dangerous weather and a tornado warning was not issued until the storm was already on the ground.
The National Meteorological Service was “surprised at how quickly this storm intensified … and at night, when most people are at home and in bed, it creates a very dangerous situation,” he said. say the director of emergency services, Ed Conrow.
In Chicago, a foot and a half (46 centimeters) of new snow forced public schools to cancel face-to-face classes for Tuesday. Hours earlier, along the warm Gulf of Mexico, cross-country skier Sam Fagg hit fresh dust on Galveston Beach, Texas.
The worst power outages in the U.S. occurred in Texas, which affects more than 2 million homes and businesses. More than 250,000 people also lost electricity in parts of Appalachia and another 200,000 were left without electricity after an ice storm in northwestern Oregon, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks reports from utility shutdowns. Four million people lost power in Mexico.
Texas officials requested 60 generators from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and planned to prioritize hospitals and residences. The state opened 35 shelters to more than 1,000 occupants, the agency said.
More than 500 people sought comfort in a Houston shelter. Mayor Sylvester Turner said other heating centers were closed because they lost power.
After losing power Monday, Natalie Harrell said she, her boyfriend and four children took refuge in a Gallery Furniture store in Houston. The store’s heating center provided people with food, water and energy to charge essential electronics.
“It’s worse than a hurricane,” Harrell said. “I think we’ll be more days without light, that’s what it looks like.”
Minnesota utility companies in Texas implemented continuous shutdowns to lighten the load on power grids to meet extreme demand for heat and electricity.
The more than one-hour blackouts began early Tuesday morning in Oklahoma City and more than a dozen other communities, shutting down space heaters, ovens and electric-powered lights just as temperatures hovered around 8 p.m. degrees (minus 22 degrees Celsius).
Oklahoma Gas & Electric rescinded plans for further shutdowns, but urged users to set thermostats to 20 degrees Celsius, avoid the use of major electrical appliances, and turn off lights or appliances that were not in use.
However, Entergy began shutting down Tuesday night in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Southeast Texas, in the direction of its network manager, Midcontinent Independent Systems Operator, “as a last resort and to prevent more extensive and prolonged power outages that could seriously affect the reliability of the electricity grid “, according to a statement of New Orleans-based utility.
“Due to the extremely cold temperatures of the last few days, the demand for electricity has reached an all-time high,” the Entergy statement said. “In addition, these weather conditions have forced the generation of resources throughout the system. The implementation of this cargo ship throughout the Entergy region will help ensure an adequate reserve margin, which will help ensure that Entergy is better positioned to manage it through additional extreme weather this week.
Entergy has nearly 3 million customers in the four states.
Nebraska blackouts occurred amid the coldest weather on record: in Omaha, the temperature dropped to 23 degrees below zero overnight (minus 30 degrees Celsius), the coldest in 25 years.
Southwest Power Pool, a utility group that covers 14 states, said the shutdowns were “the last resort to preserve the reliability of the overall electrical system.”
The disruptions forced a Texas county to administer more than 8,000 doses of Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine after a public health center lost electricity early Monday and its safety generator also failed, Rafael said Lemaitre, spokeswoman for Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo.
County officials distributed doses that could have been damaged to three hospitals, Rice University and the county jail, because there were numerous groups of people available who should not drive and there were adequate medical staff.
“It feels amazing. I’m very grateful, ”said Harry Golen, a college sophomore who waited nearly four hours with his friends, much of the cold, and was one of the last people to be shot, who otherwise wouldn’t. they would have reached the students by March or April.
Texas officials said more than 400,000 pending doses will now not arrive until at least Wednesday due to the storm.
The tornado that affected Brunswick County, North Carolina, was an EF3 with winds estimated at 257 km / h, the weather service reported on Twitter.
Three people died and 10 were injured when the tornado shattered a community of golf courses and another rural area shortly before midnight Monday, destroying dozens of homes.
Sharon Benson, 63, said her roof was damaged and the garage door exploded. The windows were shattered and the nearby trees were uprooted.
“The sky lit up and there was a lot of pop-pop-popping” and thunder, he said.
Authorities in several states reported deaths in crashes on icy roads, including two people whose vehicle slid down a road and overturned on a waterway in Kentucky on Sunday, state police said. A Mississippi man has died after losing control of his vehicle, which overturned on a icy road Monday night near Starkville, Oktibbeha County coroner Michael Hunt said Tuesday.
In Texas, three young children and their grandmother died in the Houston area fire, which probably started while using a fireplace to keep warm during an electrical outage, a fire official said. And in Oregon, authorities on Tuesday confirmed the deaths of four people last weekend in the Portland metropolitan area from carbon monoxide poisoning.
At least 13 children were treated for carbon monoxide poisoning at Cook’s Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, the hospital reported in a social media post, warning that families “were taking extreme measures to warm their children.” houses “, with combustion of propane or diesel engines and generators, gas furnaces and stoves. One of the parents died from the toxic fumes, pediatrician Phillip Scott told Fort Worth television, KTVT.
Other Texas deaths included a woman and a girl who died from alleged carbon monoxide poisoning in Houston in a powerless home of a car that was left running in an attached garage, and two men found along highways in the United States. Houston area that probably died at low freezing temperatures. said those responsible for the application.
In western Tennessee, a ten-year-old boy died after falling into an ice-covered pond Sunday during a winter storm, fire officials reported.
Several cities recorded historic lows: in Minnesota, the Hibbing / Chisholm weather station recorded minus 38 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 39 degrees Celsius). Sioux Falls, South Dakota, dropped to less than 26 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 26 degrees Celsius).
At noon, more than 2,700 flights to the United States had been canceled, led by more than 800 at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and more than 700 at the Bush Intercontinental in Houston.
Authorities asked residents to stay home Tuesday. About 100 school systems closed, delayed opening or switched to remote classes in Alabama, where forecasts said conditions may not improve until temperatures rise above ice on Wednesday afternoon.
___
U.S. Associated Press staff contributed to this report.