Storm prompts weather alerts for more than 100 million
Bad weather has led to at least 37 deaths across the country as one winter weather system followed another over the past six days.
Flood and flash flood watches cover around 16 million in the Southeast, including Atlanta and Raleigh, according to the National Weather Service. The watches extend from Georgia into the Carolinas into Friday morning.
There was good news Wednesday; 8,000 megawatts were added to the Texas grid Wednesday, enough power for about 1.6 million customers, according to a news released from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas.
Texas family goes 230 miles through wintry weather for warmth
Faced with a home with no electricity and the thought of driving 200-plus miles through snow and ice, Bryce Smith and his wife put their children in the car and headed from Austin to Royse City, where his mom’s house had power.
But first Smith had to find gas, and that took phone calls and a trip 30 miles in the other direction to a station with fuel.
Then a normally two-and-a-half hour drive turned into a five- or six-hour trek. He said the one thing that made the drive possible is that he’s from Iowa and knows how to drive in the snow.
“There are no plows here. There is no help at all. You go out here and it’s just fresh snow and ice. There’s no sand down,” he said.
The lack of power at their Austin home made it impossible to check remotely on the house. He said he is worried because pipes were bursting at homes throughout his neighborhood. But at least they are safe at his mother’s now.
Precipitation keeps coming down
Heavy rain associated with the storm is expected to drop 1-3 inches on the Carolinas and Georgia on Wednesday night into Friday, with some areas seeing higher amounts.
The rain will fall on already saturated ground that has picked up already 3-6 inches over the past week.
Spending the night in a car for warmth
In Texas, many residents have scrambled for alternative heating with electricity out continuously or intermittently for days.
Water service also has been unreliable, so when she heard service was about to shut off again, “we filled up pitchers and tubs of water,” she told CNN. “I went to (a store on Tuesday) and there was no water left, so if we lose water, it’s all we got until who knows when.”
“We have a gas stove, so we’ve been able to warm up leftovers and cook what we have,” Orta said.
Her bedroom flooded, thanks to a burst pipe, she told CNN.
Power lines fall and water lines break
In Kentucky, parts of which had several inches snow by Wednesday night, had more than 70,000 power outages, thanks in part to ice storms and snow earlier in the week.
In eastern Kentucky’s Montgomery County, James Mitchell’s house lost electricity twice this week.
Some eastern Kentucky residents still might not have electricity by week’s end, Gov. Andy Beshear said. That’s because crews have a lot of work to do to repair power lines damaged by the ice storm earlier this week, state emergency management official Michael Dossett said.
With many of the downtown sidewalks in Jackson, Mississippi covered with ice, a pedestrian walks on a street as cars pass him on Wednesday.
In Tulsa, Oklahoma, more than 100 water main and service line breaks were reported Tuesday due to freezing conditions, according to the Waterline Break Board on the City of Tulsa’s website.
“Water line breaks in Tulsa are creating dangerous conditions,” Tulsa police tweeted with a photo of a parked patrol car that became stuck when a water line broke and the water froze around the vehicle’s wheels.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said he would declare a state of emergency ahead of icy weather.
“People need to be ready to stay home and be prepared to lose power for a while, especially in the northern, western and Piedmont counties,” he said.
Madison Horton 15, builds a snowman in her front yard of her home in Nashville, Tennessee.
Weather delays Covid-19 vaccinations
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he believed his city would temporarily “run out” of doses by Thursday, at least in part because of weather-related shipment delays.
Nationwide, “shipping partners are working to deliver vaccine where possible … but the adverse weather is expected to continue to impact shipments” out of the FedEx facility in Memphis, Tennessee, and the UPS operation in Louisville, Kentucky, “which serve as vaccine shipping hubs for multiple states,” CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund said Wednesday.
CNN’s Christina Zdanowicz, Alisha Ebrahimji, Judson Jones, Dave Hennen, Michael Guy, Andy Rose, Artemis Moshtaghian, Chris Boyette and Melissa Alonso contributed to this report.
