The brutal cold that enveloped vast areas of the United States closed the Covid-19 inoculation centers and threatened to interrupt vaccine supplies to some areas.
Texas officials have been heavily criticized because the state’s power grid has failed repeatedly, forcing blackouts across the state. The freezing weather has calmed the giant wind turbines that dot the landscape of western Texas, making it impossible for energy companies to meet growing demand.
In Lubbock, Texas, college student Corbin Antu made the best of the situation. He snowboarded up and down snow-white streets, clinging to a tow rope while friends in a pickup truck pulled him around the western Texas prairie town, where it’s almost impossible to find a hill to go down. sledding or skiing.
“This is my first time in Lubbock. Trust me, it is not disappointing,” said Antu. “There is so much gunpowder on the ground that it looks like we’re almost in Colorado.”
NO ENERGY, VACCINE DELAYS
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said at a midday press conference that 1.3 million people in his city remain without power. The city is looking for businesses that still have the strength to open their doors as heating centers.
“It is extremely important to restore energy as quickly as possible. It is the number one priority!” Turner said.
Officials in South Texas have warned citizens not to bring barbecues or gas heaters inside the home – several people have been treated in hospitals for carbon monoxide poisoning while trying to heat icy homes using these outside items.
Turner said vaccination centers in Houston will remain closed on Wednesday and probably on Thursday as well.
The Texas Department of Health Services said vaccine shipments across the state would be delayed, depending on local weather conditions.
“No one wants to put the vaccine at risk when trying to apply it under dangerous conditions,” department spokesman Douglas Loveday said in an email. “Local providers have postponed vaccine clinics because it is not safe for people to be in much of Texas.”
In neighboring New Mexico, a state spokesman said via email that some of the state’s Pfizer vaccine shipments were delayed and that the company and the state were in contact with suppliers. The delays are expected to be brief and will not dramatically affect vaccination efforts over time.
The deep freeze wreaked havoc on the Texas energy sector, paralyzing operations on the Houston Ship channel and reducing production in the country’s largest oil field: the Permian in western Texas. Several of the largest oil refineries remained shut down.
FREEZE WILL LINGER
The treacherous climate will maintain control over many parts of the United States from Tuesday to Friday, with up to 10 inches of snow and freezing rain expected from the southern plains to the northeast, meteorologists said.
“We are calling it Storm System No. 2, with a location very similar to the previous storm,” said meteorologist Lara Pagano of the National Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. She was referring to a system that blew up the nation during the long weekend of President’s Day holiday, throwing snow and ice from Ohio to Rio Grande.
An Arctic air mass that descended over much of the country pushed temperatures to historic lows on Tuesday, Pagano said. In Lincoln, Nebraska, a reading of minus 31 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 35 degrees Celsius) on Tuesday broke a 1978 record of minus 18 F (minus 27 degrees Celsius).
In the typically toasted Dallas-Fort Worth, minus 1F (minus 17degC) broke a 1903 record of 12F (minus 11degC).
“That’s what people are waking up to this morning: it’s just dangerous,” said Pagano.
With more than 4.4 million power cuts in Texas alone, authorities closed the inoculation sites and endeavored to use 8,400 vaccines that require subzero cooling before spoiling after a backup generator failed, the judge said. Harris County, Lina Hidalgo. The doses were rushed to hospitals in the region and to Rice University to be injected into the arms of people who were already there and who did not have to travel on slippery roads.
Icy roads were responsible for one of the four deaths linked to the intense cold. The others were identified as homeless and two victims of carbon monoxide poisoning, said Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo.
In the southeast, a low-pressure system that developed along the arctic front created fuel for storms that triggered at least four tornadoes, said meteorologist Jeremy Grams of the Storm Service’s Norman, Oklahoma meteorological service. One tore through the Florida Panhandle and two through southwest Georgia on Monday.
The fourth and most severe hurricane left three dead and homes destroyed after sweeping overnight in the coastal county of Brunswick, North Carolina, in the southeastern corner of the state between Wilmington and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, the local sheriff’s office said. this Tuesday morning.
After a brief lull on Tuesday that could allow authorities to assess the damage, the bad weather – including possible turbulence – is expected to return on Wednesday to Thursday, Grams said.
“These same areas can be affected – which will include damaging tornadoes and winds,” he said.