As winter storms are hitting areas across the United States, Texas has seen some of the most negative and detrimental impacts. The number of those without power in the state is almost half a million as they reach their third consecutive day without electricity.
With more severe weather on the way, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas has directed energy providers to restore power that had been intentionally cut to avoid crashing. Despite these precautionary measures, 494,000 outages still occurred in Texas as of Thursday.
These outages have left Texans vulnerable in many ways. As outages affected water treatment plants, those across the state have been asked to boil their drinking water. Additionally, frozen lines have caused water pressure to fall statewide.
Some hospitals have transferred their most high-risk patients to other facilities and chose to make the tough decision to discharge others due to lack of water pressure. The low water pressure has impacted the heating systems in many of these facilities.
Nationwide, approximately 30 deaths have been reported due to the poor weather conditions. Many of these resulted from those who were attempting to keep warm in their homes. Videos have been shared of Texans burning old furniture to stay warm while others have shown the flooding and collapsed ceilings.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency is currently supplying generators and moving diesel to Texas to provide power to important facilities according to a statement from the White House on Wednesday.
