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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Power outages, water shortages as Texas shivers

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HOUSTON: Power was gradually being restored but hundreds of thousands of households remained without electricity early on Thursday across Texas, the oil and gas capital of the United States, with some facing water shortages as a deadly winter cold spell that pummelled the southeastern part of the country headed east.


The National Weather Service (NWS) issued a winter storm warning for a swathe of the country ranging from east Texas to the East Coast state of Maryland.


The NWS said the storm would bring ice, sleet and heavy snow to parts of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi as it tracks to the northeast, causing power outages, tree damage and making driving hazardous.


Even though the Arctic air mass was beginning to lose its grip on an area of the country not used to such extreme cold, the frigid temperatures would continue, the NWS said.


“Record cold daily maximum and minimum temperatures are likely to transpire in the South Central US through Saturday morning,” it said early on Thursday.


“The Plains and Mississippi Valley can expect daily temperature anomalies ranging between 20 and 30 degrees below normal.”


President Joe Biden was forced to postpone until Friday a visit to the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing site in Kalamazoo, Michigan, while federal government offices in Washington were to be closed on Thursday.


More than 30 storm-related deaths have been reported by media in the United States since the cold weather arrived last week, many in traffic accidents.


Hundreds of thousands of residents of the Texas metropolis of Houston were suffering from both power outages and a loss of water pressure.


“Water pressure is very low,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner tweeted. “Please do not run water to keep pipes from bursting.”


Nearly seven million Texans were being advised to boil their water before drinking it or using it for cooking, Toby Baker, who heads the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said on Wednesday, adding that nearly 264,000 people were impacted by non-operational water systems.


 — AFP


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