AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – Southern cities suffered winter storms that left millions without electricity For days, they have changed one crisis for another: broken water pipes broken by record low temperatures created a shortage of clean drinking water, closed Memphis Airport on Friday and left hospitals struggling to maintain conditions. health.
In Texas, 7 million people – a quarter of the nation’s second-largest population – were ordered to boil tap water before drinking it, as low water pressure could have allowed that bacteria infiltrate the system. A man died at an Abilene health center when lack of water pressure made medical treatment impossible.
About 260,000 homes and businesses in Tennessee County, including Memphis, were told they were boiling water due to major water outages and pumping station problems. They were ordered to close restaurants that cannot do so or that do not have bottled water. And water pressure problems caused Memphis International Airport to cancel all inbound and outbound Friday flights.
In Jackson, Mississippi, most of the city, with about 161,000 people, had no running water. Crews pumped water to fill the city’s tanks, but faced a shortage of chemicals for treatment, as icy roads made it difficult for distributors to deliver, Chokwe Mayor Antar Lumumba said.
He said the city’s water network is more than 100 years old and is not built to withstand the freezing weather that affected the city as several storms threw a record amount of snow to the south.
“We are facing an extreme challenge: getting more water through our distribution system,” Lumumba said.
The city provided water for washing toilets and drinking, but residents had to collect it, leaving the elderly and those living on icy roads vulnerable.
Lisa Thomas said her driveway on a hill in Jackson was a layer of ice. Her husband, who is on a defibrillator and a heart monitor, only has enough heart medication to get it until Sunday because he has not been able to go to the pharmacy.
“People have a great need here,” Thomas said.
Paul Lee Davis arrived at the head of the line at a water station created by city officials just to finish the water. I was still waiting for him to rest for three and a half hours after arriving.
“We need water, the shops are all outside. I don’t see what option we have, ”Davis said.
Water problems were the last misery of southerners who went without heat or electricity for days after ice and snow storms earlier in the week, forcing them to shut down from Minnesota to Texas.
Texas power grid operators said electricity transmission had returned to normal for the first time since historic snowfalls and single-digit temperatures created an increase in electricity demand to heat the home. , reducing the state’s power grid and causing widespread blackouts.
Minor outages occurred, but Bill Magness, chairman of Texas Electric Reliability Council, said the grid can now provide power to the entire system.
Governor Greg Abbott ordered an investigation into the failure for a state known as the U.S. energy capital. ERCOT officials have defended their preparations and the decision to start forced Monday as the network reached a breaking point.
The storms also left more than 330,000 people from Virginia to Louisiana without electricity. Some 60,000 in Oregon on Friday were still suffering a weekly outage after a massive ice and snow storm. The Oregon governor ordered the National Guard to go door-to-door in the hardest-hit areas to ensure residents had enough food and water.
The extreme weather was to blame for the deaths of at least 69 people, including many who died fighting to warm up and a Tennessee farmer who tried to save two calves apparently walking through an icy pond.
Bob Fenton, acting administrator for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Texas teams were distributing fuel, water, blankets and other supplies.
“What worries me the most is making sure people stay warm,” Fenton told CBS This Morning.
In many areas, water pressure dropped after the lines froze and because people left the taps dripping to prevent the pipes from forming icy, authorities said.
As of Friday afternoon, more than 1,300 public water systems in Texas and 159 counties had reported climate-related operating disruptions affecting more than 14.9 million people, according to the Environmental Quality Commission spokeswoman of Texas, Tiffany Young.
More than a million gallons (3.8 million gallons) of water were being transported to the Texas capital on Friday. But Austin Water Director Greg Maszaros implored residents to minimize the use of domestic faucets because “there are still many unknowns as we pressurize the system.”
In Dallas, David Lopez said the plumbing company he works for has received more than 600 service calls over the past week.
“It’s almost the first thing you get, the first thing you serve,” Lopez said, as he and a colleague drove a new water heater from his van on Friday. “Everyone has emergencies.”
Houston residents will likely have to boil tap water in the fourth-largest city in the United States until Sunday or Monday, Mayor Sylvester Turner said.
Water service was restored Friday at two hospitals in the Houston Methodist community, but officials were still carrying drinking water and some elective surgeries were canceled, spokeswoman Gale Smith said.
St. John’s Children’s Research Hospital Jude of Memphis said she was forced to switch to bottled water and bagged ice for all consumption and that staff and patients washed with hand sanitizer and unwashed bath towels. All non-urgent surgeries were postponed.
Central Arkansas Water in the Little Rock area asked customers to conserve water to help protect their system as the ground began to heat up and the pipes thawed. The city of Hot Springs warned Thursday night that its water supply was “critically low” and also asked customers to keep it.
In Little Rock, the Museum of Discovery reported that a broken pipe flooded its building, causing extensive damage to theaters, galleries and offices and killing a sample animal, a blue-skinned lizard.
More than 192,000 Louisiana residents, some still struggling to recover from Hurricane Laura last August, had no water service Friday, according to the state Department of Health. Tens of thousands more were kept under boiling water warnings.
Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards said Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards made deliveries of bottled and massive water Friday in the hardest-hit areas of Louisiana, with special attention to hospitals, residences and dialysis centers. repairs.
In the Louisiana Hackberry community, Nicole Beard said her boyfriend crawled under the house to try to fix a broken water line, but he couldn’t because he didn’t have the right parts and it was too dark. He used bottled water and sent his two daughters to stay at another house.
“People are still fighting here,” he said.
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Acacia Coronado is a member of the body of the Associated Press / Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a national non-profit services program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on covert issues.
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Sainz reported from Memphis. Associated Press reporters Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Rebecca Santana in New Orleans; Gillian Flaccus in Portland; Jake Bleiberg in Dallas; Ken Miller in Oklahoma City; Leah Willingham in Jackson, Mississippi; Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Michael Warren in Atlanta; and Tammy Webber in Fenton, Michigan, contributed.
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The story was corrected to show that at least 69 people have died, at least 70.