Our live coverage of the storm has ended, but you can track the snow and ice here.
The NHL has announced that Monday night’s game between the Dallas Stars and Nashville Predators has been postponed because of the weather-related state of emergency that remains in effect in Dallas.
The league said a makeup date will be announced as soon as it can be confirmed.?
Monday’s game was originally scheduled to take place at 7:30 p.m. local time in Dallas.
The Houston Chronicle informed subscribers that it doesn’t expect to be able to produce a printed newspaper for Tuesday.
The newspaper has been without power since 2 a.m., according to a notice to subscribers Monday.
“We’ll decide on whether to print a newspaper for Tuesday if and when power is restored, and when we can determine if it can be safely delivered,” the notice added.
Houston Chronicle news updates will continue to be posted online at HoustonChronicle.com, and Tuesday’s newspaper will be released as an eNewspaper, the notice said.
Harris County, Texas, officials painted a bleak picture of what the upcoming days could look like for the heavily populated region at a news conference Monday.
“I know you are frustrated. I know you’re miserable. I know you’re uncomfortable,” she continued. “I can tell you that the families of many of the first responders who are here keeping you safe, who’ve been here all week, since last week are also without power in their homes.”
Approximately one million homes and businesses in Harris County are without power, Hidalgo said.??
“As much as we wish it weren’t so, things will likely get worse before they get better,” she continued. “There’s a high chance, the power will be out for these folks until the weather gets better, which will not be for a couple of days.”
Jason Ryan, senior vice president of Regulatory Services and Government Affairs at CenterPoint Energy, echoed Hidalgo’s stark forecast.
Ryan also tried to explain why so many CenterPoint customers have lost power during the storm. “Starting this morning at about 1:30, the state of Texas experienced an unprecedented and significant drop in available electric generation throughout the state, and not just in the Houston area,” he said.
“When that happens, ERCOT [the?Electric Reliability Council of Texas]?instructs us to address that loss of generation by reducing the number of customers on the system. We started doing that and over the course of a number of hours early this morning.”
“We ended up having more than 1.2 million customers out of power because of that lack of generation,” Ryan said.
More than 8,400 coronavirus vaccines were in jeopardy of spoiling early Monday when a winter storm cut power to the Harris County Public Health Department building and the backup generator failed, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said.
Hidalgo said when the health department’s back-up generator failed at approximately 2 a.m. Monday, officials quickly put a plan together to allocate and salvage the vaccines.
“We were looking for places where there were already large numbers of people, where there were nurses, trained medical professionals who could administer the vaccine, and where we wouldn’t need folks to drive somewhere in these very dangerous weather and road conditions,” she said.
Harris County officials settled on Houston’s Ben Taub, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Methodist Hospitals, as well as Rice University and the Harris County Jail as the locations to receive the vaccine overnight, Hidalgo said.
Of the 8,430 vaccines taken from the Harris County Public Health Department, 1,000 were sent to Methodist Hospital, and 810 to Rice University, Hidalgo said. Another 600 vaccines were split between LBJ and Ben Taub Hospitals and 3,000 were sent to the Harris County Jail.?
Hidalgo said 3,020 vaccines have gone back into storage based on guidance from Moderna.
“The vaccine supply, we thought we were going to lose in a few hours, we could actually re-refrigerate and administer later to our waitlist,” she said. “Over 5,000 of the vaccines have been distributed and the rest have been put back in storage for distribution per our normal process.”
Hidalgo was asked if she expected to receive criticism for allocating so many vaccines to the jail.
“Whether it’s a hospital, whether it’s the jail, public health, fire marshal, everybody that put this together, it is incredible, that they were able to get those vaccines, and we were able to figure out from Moderna, how to save the ones that we were concerned we may not be able to distribute,” Hidalgo said. “It’s a point of pride that this was figured out that it was dealt with, and it should be a point of pride to our partners from Rice to the hospitals or to the sheriff’s department that helped stand up and get this done.”
Chicago Public Schools has canceled all in-person classes Tuesday due to “significant snowfall,” according to a release from the district.
The school district said it expects to hold in-person classes Wednesday.??
Earlier today, Chicago?Mayor Lori Lightfoot expressed confidence in her team’s preparations as the storm pummeled the city.
“At some point during today, it looked like a scene out of Dr. Zhivago,” Lightfoot told reporters at a news conference today.
“But our city has had a lot of days like this, even this year. And I want everyone to know, as you can see from the folks that are here, and the folks that you can’t see in the front row from various city departments. This is an all-hands-on deck-moment, and we are ready to make sure that our city continues to function, even in this extreme weather circumstance,” she added.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson announced today that the state has canceled all of its Covid-19 mass vaccination events scheduled this week due to extreme winter weather.?
To protect doses, shipments dedicated for this week’s mass vaccinations events will remain in the nine Missouri State Highway Patrol regions across the state and be redistributed to community hospitals with emergency generators. Those hospitals will be allowed to administer the vaccine to those currently eligible, according to the release. Second doses that were scheduled to be administer during the mass vaccination program will be retained in the region and administered “as promptly as possible.”?
“The state is making every effort to reschedule these events, but individuals who were registered are encouraged to reach out to other vaccinators in their region in the interim,” the release said.
Nevada may experience a delay in vaccine deliveries this week due to powerful storms that have impacted much of the country.
According to the Nevada Health Response (NHR), the state received word that the disruption could occur and they’re working with the health districts and pharmacies that may be affected.
The NHR urged Nevadans to continue to be patient.
A giant winter storm that’s brought ice and plummeting temperatures to a large swath of the middle of the country is also causing widespread power outages – and local health officials issued fresh warnings Monday about safely keeping warm.?
People who lose the ability to heat their homes may be tempted to turn on gas ovens or stoves, fire up grills or climb into cars to warm up. But according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 400 Americans die each year from carbon monoxide poisoning, many because they’ve tried do-it-yourself fixes during power outages.
With more than 3.5 million customers without power in Texas and at least 572,941 without electricity in Oregon, Louisiana, Virginia, and Mississippi, the risk is high.
Louisiana’s state health department updated warnings Monday.
The CDC has a long list of dangers. “Carbon monoxide (CO)?is found in fumes produced any time you burn fuel in cars or trucks, small engines, stoves, lanterns, grills, fireplaces, gas ranges, or furnaces. CO can build up indoors and poison people and animals who breathe it,” the CDC says on its website.
“Don’t run a car or truck inside a garage attached to your house, even if you leave the door open; Burn anything in a stove or fireplace that isn’t vented; Heat your house with a gas oven; Use a generator, charcoal grill, camp stove, or other gasoline or charcoal-burning device inside your home, basement, or garage or outside less than 20 feet from a window, door, or vent,” the CDC cautions.
“Each year, more than 400 Americans die from unintentional CO poisoning not linked to fires, more than 20,000 visit the emergency room, and more than 4,000 are hospitalized.”
More than 3.5 million customers are without power in Texas as of Tuesday evening, according to?poweroutage.us.
At least 572,941 customers are also without electricity across Oregon, Louisiana, Virginia, and Mississippi.
Here are the outages by state:
A man who slipped on ice and hit his head is Louisiana’s first death related to the winter storm sweeping across the state, the state’s Department of Health confirmed Monday.
The 50-year-old man who lived in Lafayette Parish died after slipping on the ice and hitting?his head on the ground, the Louisiana Department of Health said in a news release.
“The coroner has confirmed this death as storm related. It is the first death related to the February 2021 Winter Storm,” the department said in the statement.
The city of San Antonio, Texas, has postponed coronavirus vaccine appointments scheduled Tuesday at the Alamodome until Saturday due to the winter storm, according to a city news release.
This is the second straight day San Antonio has postponed vaccinations at the venue. Over the weekend, the city made the decision to move Monday’s appointments to Friday.??
The winter storm also appears to be impacting coronavirus vaccine shipments in some parts of Texas.
The Corpus Christi – Nueces County Public Health District will not be receiving its first vaccine dose allocations on Monday and Tuesday, the city announced in a news release.
The soonest a new shipment may come will be Wednesday, according to the city’s news release.
The Illinois Department of Transportation urged residents to “stay home” as a winter storm dropped heavy snow on roads across the state.
“Roads are an absolute mess just about everywhere,” the department tweeted.
“Heavy snowfall rates combined with blowing snow means that roads are getting covered faster than we can get them cleared,” the department said.?
The National Weather Service in St. Louis, Missouri, encouraged motorists to keep their distance on the roads due to dangerous driving conditions.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly pleaded with residents to conserve power Monday afternoon, as her state continues to deal with the lingering effects of sub-freezing temperatures and a winter storm.
Andrew French, chair of the Kansas Corporation Commission, echoed Kelly’s sentiments, as many Kansans experienced their first series of rolling blackouts on Monday afternoon.
“We are right on the edge of whether curtailments of power are needed or not, and so to the extent folks can conserve safely, we would certainly encourage them to try to cut back on that usage of natural gas and electricity. Over the next 48 to 72 hours which will be the critical period,” French said.
French added that Monday’s rolling blackouts typically lasted for 60 to 90 minutes and were coordinated statewide through the Southwest Power Pool. The first series of blackouts have concluded, and French is hopeful that the current supply is adequate meaning they will not have to conduct a second series on Tuesday.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the Texas Military Department have deployed the National Guard to conduct welfare checks on residents, as the state continues to battle bitter cold and a winter storm, according to a news release from his office.
State officials are also sending resources to assist local municipalities clear roadways and assist health care personnel and power grid workers, the release said.
The state has opened 135 warming centers as more than 3 million residents contend with power outages and heating concerns, according to the release.
“ERCOT and the PUC are working non-stop to restore power supply. The state has also deployed resources to assist Texans without power and to help essential workers continue to carry out their jobs. In the meantime, I encourage all Texans to continue to stay off the roads, and conserve energy as state agencies work with private providers to restore power as quickly as possible,” he added.
Meanwhile, the city of Fort Worth, Texas, has issued a boil water notice for residents living in the north side of the city, according to a Facebook post from the Fort Worth Water Department.?
The order comes after a power outage at the Eagle Mountain Treatment Plant and a subsequent loss of water pressure.
Ryan Rijken said his family in north Texas has been dealing with rolling power outages since around 3 a.m. local time on Monday.
His wife, Salena, is eight months pregnant and is caring for their young boys, Max, 4, and Theo, 2.
“It has been on and off intermittently since about 3 a.m. We get about 30 min on, 45 off. Some stretches have been toward an hour either way,” said Rijken who lives in Celina, Texas.?
“My wife is almost eight months pregnant and she’s keeping our boys bundled under blankets while they hang out during the outages,” he added.
When asked if he thought they might go to a hotel if the outages continue, Rijken said, “Ya, it’s pretty insane.?Been in DFW since 2004 and can’t remember it being like this.?We haven’t considered a hotel because as much as we can gather, much of the area is working through what we’re working through too, including businesses and hotels.”
Kentucky Transportation Secretary Jim Gray said there have been two fatal crashes today, calling road conditions “extremely hazardous” during an afternoon news conference.?
The transportation secretary said highway crews are working as hard as they can, with as many as 2,000 employees and more than 1,000 pieces of equipment working to clear roads across the state.
Gov. Andy Beshear this afternoon again addressed the significant winter storm affecting the state, saying Kentucky is one of the only state’s seeing all three — snow, sleet and freezing rain, or an ice storm “in a very significant way.”?
Kentucky Emergency Management Director Michael Dossett said every single county in the state is under either a watch or a warning.
“There is weather in every single county at this point,” he said.
Dossett said the state is expecting another winter weather event Wednesday and Thursday. “It’s basically play it again. We’re going to experience rain, snow, sleet and ice, maybe three to six inches of accumulation of snow. And then we will move into, thankfully,?a warming trend,” he said.
The Mississippi Highway Patrol has investigated more than 400 weather-related traffic incidents since Sunday.
The Mississippi Highway Patrol tweeted that 443 incidents have been reported statewide as of noon CT today. The agency said it is “working hard to keep up with calls to investigate accidents and offer assistance to motorists affected by the winter storm.” They asked people to “please refrain from unnecessary travel.”?
Icy roads are reported throughout the state due to the winter storm, according to a?Facebook post?by the Mississippi Department of Transportation. All but eight counties reported ice on roads and bridges as of 1 p.m. CT, the post said.?
More than 3.8 million customers are without power in Texas Monday afternoon due to a winter storm, according to?poweroutage.us
More than 600,000 customers are also without electricity across Oregon, Louisiana, Virginia and Mississippi.
Here are the outages by state:
Evergy announced Monday it has begun to turn off electricity to blocks of customers across Kansas and Missouri for about 30 to 60 minutes in “controlled, temporary emergency electricity reductions” to avoid larger and extended power outages.?
In a news release, the company said that once the period has concluded, power will be restored to the impacted area.
Evergy said it is following a directive from the Southwest Power Pool “due to the extended extreme temperatures affecting the regional power supply.”
Evergy serves about 1.6 million customers in Kansas and Missouri, according to the release.
Several parishes in Louisiana have implemented curfews due to the cold weather and icy conditions throughout the state.
East Baton Rouge Parish, which includes Baton Rouge, will be under a curfew starting tonight at 8 p.m. through 7 a.m. CT tomorrow while West Baton Rouge Parish’s curfew will be from 9 p.m. CT through daylight on Tuesday.?
Other curfews were announced in the parishes of Acadia, Lafourche, Lafayette, Livingston, Pointe Coupee, and Vermilion.
The city manager in Galveston, Texas, says damage to infrastructure from the freezing temperatures could be worse than that caused by a hurricane.?
Between 90% to 95% of homes in Galveston are currently without power.
Barnett said the city is particularly concerned about the freezing temperatures bursting pipes.?
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, speaking at an afternoon news conference today, said power outages are a major concern for the city.
“The main issue for right now are the power outages that are taking place throughout our state,” he said.
Turner said a number of generator plants have been taken offline in various parts of the state due to frozen-over wind turbines and a nuclear plant also had to be taken offline due to hazardous weather conditions.?
“It is a systemwide failure across the state,” the mayor said as he explained that the state entity Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) controls most of the state electric grid.
Turner said he’s aware of the social media chatter asking him to turn on the heat but adds that that isn’t under his purview, “that’s on the state level and that’s creating a great deal of power outages.”
Shortly after Turner’s news conference, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted that the Texas power grid has not been compromised.
“The ability of some companies that generate the power has been frozen. This includes the natural gas & coal generators,”?Abbott tweeted?adding that ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission of Texas are working to get power back online, prioritizing residential consumers.
ERCOT said a combination of high demand and failures at generating sites are to blame for the prolonged outages.
CNN’s Jeremy Grisham contributed to this reporting.
Electricity use due to the extreme cold has exceeded the available power throughout the 14-state Southwest Power Pool,?which manages the electric grid across central and western US states, according to a press release.??
SPP declared an Energy Emergency Alert Level 3 at 10:08 a.m. CT today, when it was forced to rely on reserve energy at that time, the release states.
It has now exhausted all available reserve energy, and they have directed their member utilities to start “controlled interruptions of service” to prevent widespread outages, it states.
The release says that SPP has told its members’ transmission operators to reduce demand by the amount needed to prevent further uncontrolled outages and that the individual utilities will use their individual emergency operating plans to reduce the required amount of energy.??
“Our grid operators and member utilities are highly trained and prepared to respond to situations like this, and we’re working closely together to ensure the grid returns to a stable?and safe operating condition,” Nickell said.
Read SPP’s full statement:
Below freezing temperatures are forecast to affect more than 245 million people in the lower 48 states over the next seven days, with more than 50 million Americans expected to experience temperatures below zero.
The cold air is so widespread that you could travel nearly 2,000 miles from the Rio Grande on the Mexican border to the St. Lawrence River on the Canadian border entirely in winter storm warnings or watches.
There is the potential for more than 240 cold temperature records to be broken by tomorrow evening, and some records have already been shattered.
The heaviest snow in the East is expected to fall from the Mississippi Valley, through the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes. A total of 6 to 12 inches is expected by tomorrow evening from Arkansas to upstate New York.
The Houston Police Department tweeted out a photo of the city’s empty, snow-dusted downtown this morning.
“Roads are still very dangerous. Stay home and stay warm,” the department added.
The largest oil refinery in the US is shutting down as freezing weather grips Texas. Motiva Enterprises says it is “methodically shutting down” its Port Arthur Manufacturing Complex.
In a statement, Motiva said “unprecedented freezing temperatures necessitated safely and methodically shutting down” the oil refinery located in Port Arthur, Texas.?
Motiva says it “will resume normal operations as soon as it is safe to do so.”
The Federal Aviation Administration has closed two airports in Louisiana due to the ice and snow in the region, bringing the total number of?major?airports?closed to five.?
The airports in Baton Rouge and Lafayette were shut down around 11:50 a.m. CT.?Baton Rouge Metro is slated to reopen at noon local time on Tuesday, while Lafayette’s airport should reopen at 5 p.m. local time on Monday.?
This is in addition?to the closures of both airports in Houston as well as Jackson, Mississippi, as CNN previously reported.?
Flights have also been significantly impacted in both Dallas and Austin.
More than 3 million customers were without power?in the US as of early this morning as winter storms grip the country. More than 2.7 million of the outages have been reported in Texas, where rolling outages started overnight following high demand.
Here’s what you need to know if the power goes out, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
In the city of?Galveston, Texas, 90 to 95% of households are currently without power due to the historic winter storm ravaging the state, according to a statement from the city Monday.??
According to the statement, the?Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), the entity managing the flow of energy throughout most of the state, turned off power to around 50% of?Galveston?homes around 3:30 a.m. ET Monday, and then the majority of homes around 11 a.m. ET as the demand?“did not decrease enough to restore power.”?
Galveston’s local power utility, CenterPoint Energy, said no infrastructure has been damaged so far and power could be restored as soon as Monday night, according to the city.?
The city is currently under a local state of disaster although all utility infrastructure is currently operational, according to the statement.??
A driver’s best bet is to stay home when wintry weather coats the roads in snow and ice. For those who must go out, it’s important to plan.?AAA recommends?motorists pack a winter driving kit that includes:
Here’s some advice for when you’re out on the road:
Parking:?Try to ease your vehicle out of parking spaces without spinning the wheels. Drive back and forth for several feet in either direction to clear a path. Spread sand or salt near the wheels if additional traction is needed.
Ice on your vehicle:?Iced-over vehicles can limit driver visibility, and ice flying off cars can be hazardous to fellow drivers, so de-ice vehicles before driving.
Driving:?If you have to drive in conditions with low visibility, go slowly with your headlights on low beam, AAA advises. Allow at least double the usual following distance between cars. Never use cruise control on a slick surface.
Steering around an obstruction is often safer than braking suddenly at speeds above 25 mph on a slippery surface, according to AAA’s pamphlet?“How to Go on Ice and Snow”?(PDF).
When you do brake, don’t remove your foot from the brake or pump the pedal if you have anti-lock brakes, AAA advises. Drivers of cars that don’t have anti-lock brakes should keep their heel on the floor and apply firm pressure to the brake pedal to the threshold of locking.
In case of skidding, steer in the direction you want the front of the car to go, keeping your eyes on your travel path. And don’t slam on the brakes; you’re likely to make it harder to get back in control.
A storm sweeping the Pacific Northwest produced heavy snow, ice accumulation and freezing rain over the weekend and left hundreds of thousands of people in Oregon and Washington without power as of Monday.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown?declared a state of emergency?Saturday in nine counties due to the severe winter weather that resulted in heavy snow and ice accumulation, high winds, critical transportation failures, and loss of power and communications capabilities.
As such, over 320,000 power outages were reported across Oregon with Portland General Electric reporting the majority of power outages, affecting 280,000 customers as of Monday at noon and Pacific Power reporting the second highest number of outages with 40,000 affected customers. “A series of historic storms has hit our communities, bringing three waves of snow, ice and wind,”?Portland General Electric said?addressing the winter weather event. “As each storm rolls in, more ice builds up on trees and power lines, that causes more and more trees and power lines to fall…as we repair one area, another area is impacted, and more repairs have to happen.”
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler announced an emergency due to the hazardous weather, closing government offices at noon on Monday and Multnomah County officials?kept severe weather shelters open?at the Oregon Convention Center in downtown Portland and Metro Garage for residents needing a safe and warm place to stay through the storm.
The National Weather Service announced ice storm warnings in both?Portland?and?Seattle over the weekend and departments of transportation for each city issued travel advisories cautioning residents to?stay indoors if possible. Widespread rain in Seattle early Monday morning brought with it some pockets of snow and freezing rain in valleys near the Cascades, the National Weather Service?tweeted on Monday.
Seattle?Mayor Jenny Durkan said?parts of the Emerald City received a nearly a foot of snow on Saturday as the city broke a record for snowiest day in decades with 8.9 inches of snow falling at Seattle’s Sea-Tac Airport (where official snowfall records are kept) on Saturday Feb. 13, according to?CNN affiliate KOMO.
Winter weather isn’t the only threat today, with a tornado watch now in effect for portions of the Gulf Coast.?
The watch covers parts of southeast Alabama, southwest Georgia and the Florida Panhandle until 6 p.m. CT this evening, according to the Storm Prediction Center.?The watch covers more than 1.6 million people and includes cities like Tallahassee, Panama City, and Apalachicola.?
A few tornadoes, along with large hail and damaging wind gusts of up to 80 mph are possible.?Much of that region is under an enhanced, level 3 of 5 risk for severe weather for this afternoon and evening.?A wider level 1 and 2 risk covers over 17 million people all the way from Florida through the coastal Carolinas.
The city of Houston, Texas, is rushing to open as many warming facilities as possible for its homeless population amid frigid winter temperatures.??
Plummer said the city opened up a warming facility at the GRB Convention Center Sunday afternoon, and they now have more than 450 homeless sheltering there and have the capacity for 100 more. Every person entering the facility is being screened for Covid-19, Plummer noted.??
Plummer, who was present at the GBR opening Sunday, said the line to enter the facility began forming long before the doors opened.?She said she attributed the long line to the slew of Covid-19 related evictions in the city, resulting in a higher number of homeless, and a lack of information among locals of their legal protections under the national moratorium on evictions issued by the CDC in Sept. of 2020.??
?“We are leading in evictions around the country and because of that, our homeless numbers are increasing. These are people at the convention center that wouldn’t normally be there,” Plummer said, adding people have been “self-evicting.”??
Plummer said the city has opened six additional warming facilities, each housing 50 to 60 homeless individuals, and that none of them are full at the moment.?She said the city is working to open more warming facilities to ensure no one in need is turned away.??
Winter storm watches, warning or advisories are posted in at least 40 states and cover around 160 million people, or half the US population.?
Here’s a look at the snowfall in some key cities across Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana:
The winter weather outbreak is bringing the?coldest air in decades to many locations?across the Central US.
Here’s a sample of some of the lows:
The wintry?weather?has exited the southern Plains this morning, dumping more than a foot of?snow?in parts of Texas — but this event is only beginning in the eastern US.
Snow?will continue to fall across the mid-Mississippi River Valley during the middle of today, impacting cities like Little Rock, Memphis, St. Louis and Louisville. Thundersnow may even be possible.
Meanwhile south and east of there, there’s a concern for ice. Freezing rain or a wintry mix is expected across much of Mississippi, northwestern Alabama, central Tennessee, and eastern Kentucky through the end of today. This includes Jackson and Nashville.
Here’s what we expect next:
Between now and Tuesday night, a widespread 8 to 12 inches of snowfall can be expected from central Arkansas through northern Maine.
Winter weather is gripping the US coast to coast, and more than?1/3 of the continental US area was below zero this morning. More than 79% below freezing.?
Meanwhile, there was a?130-degree spread in temperatures across the US yesterday, from 90 degrees in Florida to -40 in parts of Wisconsin and Minnesota. While hundreds of record lows are being set in the Central US, Miami hit a record high heat index of 91 yesterday.
Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo urged residents to stay inside and off the roads — even if the sun is shining.
The Houston area has been hit especially hard in this snow and ice storm. Both airports are closed and city police responded to more than 130 traffic accidents Sunday night, Police Chief Art Acevedo said in a?tweet late last night.
A 10-car pileup on Interstate 45, south of downtown, was just one of many incidents on icy roads.
“Please avoid traveling until this severe weather event subsides,” Acevedo said.
Dallas/Fort Worth International and?Austin-Bergstrom International Airports are the latest in a string of airports that have been impacted by the historic winter storm bearing down on the state of Texas.??
Dallas/Fort Worth International?tweeted Monday?that all inbound flights were being held at their location until at least 2:00 p.m. ET.??
Austin-Bergstrom said it was canceling all flights Monday and?tweeted out?a short of video snow falling on snow-covered airport grounds?
Houston’s Hobby airport, who announced early Monday morning that it was closing,??an updated tweet?said?that?it will not re-open until at least Tuesday afternoon. George Bush International, also in Houston, also announced early Monday it was closing and later?tweeted?it would reassess?airfield?conditions at 3:00 p.m. ET.??
In addition to the three Texas airports being affected by?the?storm,?Jackson International Airport in Mississippi is closed as well.
Below freezing temperatures are forecast to affect more than 245 million people in the lower 48 states over the next seven days, with more than 50 million Americans expected to experience temperatures below zero.
The cold air is so widespread that you could travel nearly 2,000 miles from the Rio Grande on the Mexican border to the St. Lawrence River on the Canadian border entirely in winter storm warnings or watches.
There is the potential for more than 240 cold temperature records to be broken by Tuesday evening, and some records have already been shattered.
The heaviest snow in the East is expected to fall from the Mississippi Valley, through the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes. A total of 6 to 12 inches is expected by Tuesday evening from Arkansas to Upstate New York.
Oklahoma City has gone a record five days without climbing over 20 degrees Fahrenheit — they are not expected to top that temperature until Thursday, for a stretch of nine days.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said the winter weather blanketing his state will cause some delays with Covid-19 vaccinations.
During a Monday morning news conference, Beshear said “this weather is going to slow down our vaccinations,” but he hopes that the state will be able to make up for it next week after the last of the weather dissipates.
As some locations across the state have to push back appointments, the governor said sites are prepared to scale up vaccination appointments next week.?“We still hope we will be over 90% for the week, but wherever we are, that next week will be 120% or 135%, it’s unfortunate but it’s unavoidable.”?
“We’ve been waiting for these vaccines for so long and it’s unfortunate that it’s going to push it back a week, but when we look at the at the long term trajectory a week isn’t gonna slow us down,” the governor added.
Beshear said he is not worried about any doses expiring as the state waits for the weather to pass, but the main concern is if any facilities that are storing doses lose power. “But they all have different agreements and different plans in place, whether they be generators or partners that they can take those doses to.”
##Kentucky#
Winter weather is impacting much of the country, but Texas has been particularly hard hit.?
Here are some impacts that have been felt across the state:
Read more about about the winter weather and its impacts here.
“What we’re facing is three winter storms in seven days,” Jim Gray, secretary of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet said during a Monday morning news conference.
Kentucky is currently experiencing it’s second storm of three.
But Gray said that was just a short break. Later today, snowfall is anticipated to drop faster than road crews will be able to clear it.
Gov. Andy Beshear pleaded with residents to stay off the roads and to be aware of the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning, “those are casualties we don’t want to see. We did not make it through almost a year of a pandemic to lose people to a snow or an ice storm.”
Beshear said “The National Guard has been alerted and our soldiers are standing by with equipment ready to assist if necessary. In fact, we just had to stand up our first unit in Ashland, which is going to be going door to door to check on those that are more remote and have lost power and will be transporting people to warming stations, if necessary.”
Highway crews have been out “working under these difficult conditions,” Gray said, adding, “We have good equipment. We have great people. We have some 2,000 front line employees committed to this work today. More than 1,000 pieces of equipment, supplemented by 400 contract plow operators, but we still, despite this, we need everyone’s help.”?
“We asked you to do your part,” Gray said. “The main thing you can do as a citizen is to stay off the roadways if you don’t have to be on them.”
The Houston Office of Emergency Management said Monday it expects power outages throughout the city to continue through Tuesday.??
More than 2.3 million people live in Houston, the state’s most populous city, according to census.gov.??
The state of Texas is currently experiencing a mixture of power outages and rolling blackouts.?
There are currently more than 2.6 million households without power in the state, according to?poweroutage.us.?
Nearly 170 million people are under?winter weather advisories?Monday, with icy roads, power outages, and dangerously low temperatures threatening to snarl traffic and paralyze cities from coast to coast.
The severe winter weather has sparked emergency declarations in at least seven states, including Alabama, Oregon, Oklahoma, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and Texas ?— which has borne the brunt of the cold weather.
Officials in Harris County, Texas, warned residents during a?press conference?Sunday night to stay indoors.
The Houston area has been hit especially hard. Both airports are closed and city police responded to more than 130 traffic accidents Sunday night, Police Chief Art Acevedo said in a?tweet.
A 10-car pileup on Interstate 45, south of downtown, was just one of many incidents on icy roads.
“Please avoid traveling until this severe weather event subsides,” Acevedo said.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who declared a state of emergency earlier in the day, echoed the chief’s orders.
“Please stay off the roads tonight and through tomorrow. This is serious! The roads are dangerous!”