Firefighters near San Antonio had to get into the water by truck on Thursday to fight a fire that devastated an apartment building because the fire hydrants were frozen, said a fire chief.
No one was injured in the fire, which started around 1 pm between the floors of an apartment building near the TPC Parkway near the city, said Jerry Bialick, head of the Bexar Bulverde Volunteer Fire Department. More than 80 people have been displaced, said a Red Cross spokesman.
When the teams arrived, the fire hydrant in front of the building, and others around it, were unusable due to the cold weather and severe winter conditions in San Antonio and the rest of the state.
“Our problem is that we move a little bit and then the water runs out,” Bialick told a news team at the NBC affiliate WOAI at the scene.
Bialick said the water utilities – which are trucks that transport water – were sent from across the region to help. The trucks carried between 2,000 and 3,000 gallons of water, he said, but that could run out in a few minutes.
The video of the scene showed firefighters using ladder trucks to spread fire from above. Pieces of what appeared to be the roof and other sections collapsed.
The cause of the fire was not immediately clarified.
The fire chief expected the teams to be on the scene all night. Residents of neighboring buildings were also instructed to leave as a precaution.
A Red Cross spokesman said 32 units were affected and 87 people were displaced. They were helping with supplies and helping displaced people to find shelter.
After the winter storm and low temperatures that hit the state, about 4 million customers lost power in blackouts, but residents told WOAI that there was electricity in the apartment complex.
On Thursday night, the number of customers without power dropped to about 284,000, according to the tracking website poweroutage.us.
Another cold night was reserved for San Antonio, with a minimum temperature forecast of 21 degrees, according to the National Meteorological Service.
It won’t be until Saturday, when temperatures for San Antonio and other parts of the state are expected to remain above freezing at night.
There were at least 37 deaths in eight states in which winter and freezing temperatures were considered a factor or cause.
Most of them were in Texas, where 21 people died, including in car accidents and two deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning in a home in Houston that used a car to keep warm because there was no heating.
