HOUSTON: While Henry Nguyen reopened his hair salon in southwest Houston, half a dozen residents came running in, not to cut their hair, but to wash their hair. They had spent days without running water at home.
The winter freeze that cut off electricity and water in much of America’s fourth-largest city had forced Nguyen to close the hall for four days as he struggled to protect his home’s water pipes, struggling with a generator without life and sent his three children to a friend’s house to escape the relentless cold. For the three decades following his arrival from Vietnam, Mr. Nguyen had only cared about the heat and hurricanes in Houston.
“I wasn’t scared of winter, but now I know,” Mr. Nguyen said. “The ice storm tore down the entire state.”
The stylist was among many residents and businessmen who emerged on Saturday to analyze the damage and begin returning to normal routines after the fiercest winter storm that hit the city in decades. About 4 million customers ran out of electricity across Texas during last week’s worst storm. On Saturday, that number dropped to less than 50,000, according to PowerOutage.US data. Access to safe drinking water was a critical issue for millions of people in the state, after icy temperatures blew up pipes and cities, including Houston, were put under boiling water warnings.
Mr Nguyen was cutting his hair again as cars tossed on empty ice roads. The weather had become warmer. Traffic on foot resurfaced along Sharpstown’s main thoroughfare, the diverse neighborhood where Hair By Henry opened 19 years ago.