Power Outages, Boil Notices Continue for Many Americans as Second Storm Hits East Coast – A fresh winter storm pounded large parts of the U.S. with snow, freezing rain and extreme temperatures Thursday, as hundreds of thousands of Americans remained without power and millions of Texans were under a boil-water notice.
More than 350,000 customers in Texas still had no power as they waited out ice-cold weather, according to data from poweroutage.us. While many had been without electricity for days, over two million customers had their power restored since Wednesday and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas said it had made significant progress.
Nearly 90,000 customers in Oregon were without power, while more than 100,000 customers in both Mississippi and Louisiana had no electricity after earlier snowfall and ice accumulation disrupted the grid and power lines. Kentucky, Alabama, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio were also reporting outages.
At Port Houston in Texas, a key hub for U.S. energy exports, public terminals and truck offices were closed Thursday because of lack of power and water. Officials said they were monitoring conditions.
As the second major U.S. storm this week hit the Northeast, below-average temperatures persisted in the South, the Central and Southern Plains and parts of the Mississippi Valley, though they are significantly higher than the frigid, record-breaking temperatures seen earlier in the week.
The storms and frigid weather caused chaos for communities across much of the Deep South, a region not used to such conditions. Greenville, a city of about 30,000 in the Mississippi Delta, issued a boil-water advisory after the cold temperatures and power outages caused water pressure to drop.
Ruben Brown Sr., the city’s fire chief, spent Thursday joining other firefighters and volunteers to deliver bottled water, medicine and food supplies to the elderly and disabled in the area.
“It’s an all-hands effort,” said Chief Brown, 51 years old, who was making deliveries on icy roads with his wife and son. “In the Delta, we’re just not used to this. We’re used to dealing with flooding and high temperatures. This is a rarity.”
The area hasn’t seen a winter storm this severe since 1993, when Mr. Brown was a rookie in the department, he said. One family—a mother and five children—had their house burn down this week after a space heater sparked a fire, he said.
“They lost everything,” he said. “We are doing all we can to help them.”
In Texas, millions remained under a boil-water notice as frozen pipes along with power outages at water facilities have created the most significant post-storm issue—especially for those who have no electricity to boil their water.
As of Thursday afternoon, more than 1,000 public water systems, affecting more than 14 million people, were experiencing some form of water disruptions, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
A citywide boil notice was issued in Austin on Wednesday evening due to power loss at Ullrich Water Treatment Plant, according to Austin Water, the city’s utility company.
“We need to conserve water so we can build back up the water pressure, build back up the reserves that we’ve lost over the past 24 hours,” Austin Mayor Steve Adler, a Democrat, told residents in a video message. “Only use the water that you absolutely have to use.”
Other large metro areas, including San Antonio and Houston, have also issued boil-water notices for all residents. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said Thursday that people will need to boil water until at least Sunday.
San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said the city’s water utility understands the notice “presumes you have power and water” and is working on a way to deliver clean water to those who cannot boil it.
“H2O quality remains high. This is a precautionary notice, especially if your pressure has changed,” the Democrat said on Twitter Wednesday afternoon. As of Thursday afternoon, 10,591 San Antonio customers were without electricity, according to CPS Energy, the city’s electric utility company.
The series of storms this week have prompted the closure of many Covid-19 testing and vaccination sites, and disrupted the country’s vaccine distribution, which has had a cascading effect on state and local jurisdictions’ abilities to administer shots and schedule future appointments.
In New Jersey, where snow fell steadily Thursday morning, Gov. Phil Murphy said he expects there to be supply-chain issues. “We’re working with a conservative expectation that our anticipated deliveries will not arrive as scheduled,” the Democrat said.
Mr. Murphy said many of the state’s vaccine megasites would be closed in anticipation for the storm, and appointments will be rescheduled.
The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services said it was notified by the federal government of vaccine delays for both first- and second-dose shipments. “Both Pfizer and Moderna have a backlog of orders due to weather,” the department said. “These delays may cause vaccination appointments to be postponed or rescheduled.”
A spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday the agency was anticipating widespread delays, as bad weather affected deliveries out of vaccine shipping hubs in Memphis, Tenn., and Louisville, Ky.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Thursday the Biden administration was monitoring the storm’s impact on vaccination efforts, and the CDC and federal partners “are working closely with the jurisdictions as well as manufacturing and shipping partners to assess weather conditions and to help mitigate potential delivery delays and cancellations.”
“Our goal is to ensure vaccine distribution across all jurisdictions is as stable and equitable as possible,” Ms. Psaki said.
In New York City, there were about 17,500 first doses of vaccine available on Thursday. Mayor Bill de Blasio said during a news conference that vaccine shipments expected to arrive on Tuesday or Wednesday won’t likely arrive until Saturday or even Sunday. The majority of vaccines haven’t left factories, the Democrat said.
“This is the situation we are in,” Mr. de Blasio said. “It’s been too hand to mouth in general and then it’s been made even worse by the storm.”
