Some 14 million Texans continue to experience water outages, forcing residents to scrape snow off walls and boil it for drinking water while hundreds of motorists wait in line outside a Houston stadium to get bottled water.
The disrupted water service left many longing for a hot shower just as the state’s power grid jerked back to life after five days of blackouts.
All the state’s power plants were functioning again, although more than 195,000 homes remained without electricity on Friday morning.
As of Thursday afternoon, more than 1,000 Texas public water systems and 177 of the state’s 254 counties had reported weather-related operational disruptions, according to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
With power back on, officials hope to replenish the state’s water supply. Experts said the dangerously low water levels posed a threat to residents who needed to boil water in order to do mundane tasks like brushing their teeth, cooking, or drinking.
The situation has inflicted yet more misery throughout the state. Some residents returned to homes only to find that the ceilings had collapsed because of water pipes that burst as a result of the record low, sub-freezing temperatures that engulfed the region over the course of the past week.
In Austin, hospital staffers were forced to use trash bags to vacate waste from the toilets while not being able to wash their hands or take a shower because of a lack of water.
Mark Maybou scrapes snow from a wall and piles it into a bucket to melt it into water in Austin, Texas, on Friday
Marie Maybou melts snow on the kitchen stove in her home in Austin, Texas on Friday. She was using the water to flush toilets in her home after the city water stopped running
Cars line up to receive free water during a mass distribution drive at Delmar Stadium in Houston, Texas on Friday
More than two dozen sick patients who had been hospitalized in the state capital had to be transferred to other facilities as temperatures in hallways and patient rooms plummeted and frigid conditions took hold due to a lack of heat, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
‘Out of caution, yesterday we transported approximately 30 patients who were either vulnerable or could easily be cared for at another facility,’ David Huffstutler, the CEO of St. David’s HealthCare, said in an email on Thursday.
‘We continue to work with the City of Austin in an effort to resolve the water outage, but they have been unsuccessful in resolving the water system issue affecting service and water pressure to our hospital.’
St. David’s South Austin Medical Center on Wednesday reported a loss of heat and water pressure. Officials there said they were taking steps to get water to the hospital.
Jesse Salazar carries away his container of water after filling it up at Meanwhile Brewing Company in Austin, Texas on Friday
A contractor removes material from a ceiling in a recently-purchased home that sustained water damage due to busted pipes in Houston on Friday
A patient at St. David’s South Austin Medical Center is prepared for transport in Austin, Texas, on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, hospital officials said some patients at the facility would be moved over to other hospitals in the area after the building began losing heat due to low water pressure
Russell Brown walks away in the snow after being discharged from St. David’s South Austin Medical Center in Austin on Thursday. Brown, who is homeless, spent two nights in the hospital with pain from chronic neurological damage, before he was discharged from the hospital that was evacuating some patients after it ran out of water and lost heat
Containers are filled with non-potable water at a water distribution site in Houston on Friday. The city’s 2.3 million residents have been told by the mayor to boil water due to safety concerns
Water is loaded into the trunk of a car at a City of Houston water distribution site on Friday
Shane Morning checks the pipes under his house for leaks while his neighbor (not pictured) turns on the home’s water following an unprecedented winter storm in Houston on Friday
Tyler Riese, a plumber, reaches underneath a house in Houston to investigate a pipe, which burst after freezing
Contractors remove material from a ceiling in a recently-purchased home that sustained water damage due to busted pipes in Houston on Friday
Jim Curtis helps a woman search for a way to shut off her water after she found a leak following an unprecedented winter storm in Houston
‘We currently are out of water,’ reads a sign attached to the entrance of a Kroger supermarket in Houston on Friday
Huffstutler said water tank trucks have been deployed to three hospitals – St. David’s South Austin Medical Center, St. David’s Medical Center and Heart Hospital of Austin – to connect and pressurize their systems due to water outages and low pressure.
‘While the duration of this issue remains unknown at this time, all St. David’s HealthCare facilities are prepared to handle the situation and have a sufficient supply of water to help ensure that we can continue to provide our patients with exceptional care,’ he said.
More than 1 million gallons of water was being trucked Friday to the Texas capital.
But Austin’s water director, Greg Meszaros, implored residents to minimize the use of home faucets because ‘there’s still a lot of unknowns as we pressurize the system.’
According to Meszaros, 325 million gallons of water have been lost due to burst pipes – and that’s just in Austin alone.
‘We know that there are tens of thousands of leaks,’ Meszaros told CNN.
‘As the fire department indicated they have responded to thousands upon thousands of burst pipes.’
In Dallas, David Lopez said the plumbing company he works for received more than 600 calls for service over the last week.
‘It’s pretty much first come, first served,’ said Lopez, as he and a colleague manhandled a new water heater out of their van on Friday.
‘Everyone’s got emergencies.’
Houston residents probably will have to boil tap water in the fourth-largest American city until Sunday or Monday, said Mayor Sylvester Turner.
Water service was restored Friday to two Houston Methodist community hospitals, but officials were still bringing in drinking water and some elective surgeries were canceled, spokeswoman Gale Smith said.
The weather has been blamed for the deaths of 49 people.
Lang Le fills up a container of water at the Georgetown Community Center in Austin, Texas, on Friday
City of Austin Water Utility workers Joey Putman, front, and Salvador Tinajero repair a broken water main near 11th and Red River streets in Austin on Friday
The image above shows utility workers repairing a broken water main in Austin on Friday
The image above shows water trickling from a fire hydrant as utility workers in the background repair a broken water main in Austin on Friday
Volunteers prepare to load bags of water into a waiting vehicle at Grace Church in Plano, Texas on Friday
Will Jaquiss, the owner of Meanwhile Brewing Company in Austin, Texas fills containers with water on Friday
Local residents wait outside the Meanwhile Brewing Company in Austin to fill up their containers with water on Friday
The brewery gave away all 4,000 gallons of their water to people in need on Thursday and Friday
Martin Lopez loads up his car with water after refilling the bottles at Georgetown Community Center on Friday in Austin
A warming trend is expected to relieve some of the pressure on the region on Saturday, the National Weather Service said.
‘One more night of below freezing temperatures at some areas, then a warm up is expected into the weekend,’ the weather service’s Houston office wrote on Twitter on Friday.
Bitter cold weather and snow have paralyzed Texas since Sunday, shutting down much of the state’s electricity grid and freezing pipes and waterways, leaving communities across the state either without water altogether or forced to boil it for safety.
Monday was the third coldest day since record keeping began, according to Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, with a statewide average temperature of 16.7 degrees Fahrenheit, citing records dating back to 1899.
That same day, temperatures in the state capital Austin dropped below those in parts of Alaska.
Jennifer Jordan, 54, of Midlothian just south of Dallas, said she and her husband were without power even though the family’s online account with the provider indicated their issues had been ‘resolved.’
‘I have no power at my house – not one drop of power,’ the high school special-education teacher said in an interview.
Empty shelves are seen at snack section in Fiesta supermarket after winter weather caused food and clean water shortage in Houston on Friday
Houston residents probably will have to boil tap water in the fourth-largest US city until Sunday or Monday, said Mayor Sylvester Turner
A shopper grabs one of the few remaining packages of bottled water in a Houston supermarket on Friday
Shoppers walk by newly empty snack section in Fiesta supermarket in Houston on Friday
Public officials in Houston warned residents that even though the weather is expected to warm up a bit in the next few days, the power grid remains fragile
The image above shows empty shelves in a Fiesta supermarket location in the city of Houston on Friday
The above image shows the cleaned-out dairy section at the Fiesta supermarket in Houston on Friday
An empty bread case is seen above on the right as shoppers look for whatever they could find at Fiesta supermarket in Houston on Friday
‘It’s really hard. You are really longing to get a hot shower, eat a hot meal.’
But even as services in many neighborhoods return, broken pipes and other damage continue to render some homes uninhabitable.
In Houston on Friday, plumbers worked on Friday to repair pipes that froze and ruptured in Drew Ainscough’s 1920s bungalow, damaging several rooms.
Water service has been returned to his block, but remains turned off for their home as repairs continue.
‘Right now, we’re not really able to live in there,’ said the 33-year-old engineer, who has been staying with his in-laws for the past several days.
‘Hopefully, by this weekend we’ll be able to have everything cleaned up enough.’
In parts of the state, frozen roads remained impassable. Ice-downed lines and other issues had utility workers scrambling to reconnect homes to power, while oil and gas producers look for ways to renew output.
Hospitals in some hard-hit areas ran out of water and transferred patients elsewhere. Millions of people were ordered to boil their drinking water after water-treatment plants lost power, which could allow harmful bacteria to proliferate.
In Houston, a mass distribution of bottled water opened at Delmar Stadium on Friday, the city’s Office of Emergency Management said.
A worker waits to load cases of water into vehicles at a City of Houston water distribution site on Friday
The drive-thru stadium location was setup to provide bottled water to individuals who need water while the city remains under a boil water notice or because they lack water at home due to frozen or broken pipes
The image above shows cars lined up in the drive-thru location at a parking lot at a Houston stadium where water was being distributed
Several city workers are seen amidst piles of bottled water waiting to be distributed to needy residents on Friday
Around midday, the line of cars waiting to enter the stadium stretched for at least half a mile, one police officer told Reuters.
Speaking at the stadium distribution site, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said the city aimed to distribute more than 1 million bottles of water to its residents on Friday and that another mass distribution would take place on Saturday.
A boil-water order for the city might be lifted as soon as Monday, he said.
Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in Harris County, which encompasses Houston, said she was pleased with progress, but warned residents to brace for more hardship.
‘The grid is still fragile,’ she said, noting cold weather would persist for a few days, which would ‘put pressure on these power plants that have just come back on.’
President Joe Biden said he would accelerate federal emergency assistance for Texas and had directed his administration to identify other resources to help the state.
Biden said he would meet with the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on Friday and ask him to issue a major disaster declaration to speed up aid.
‘God willing, it will bring a lot of relief to a lot of Texans,’ Biden told reporters at the White House.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott confirmed that all power-generating plants were online as of Thursday afternoon.
He urged lawmakers to pass legislation to ensure the grid was prepared for cold weather in the future.
A pedestrian in Houston on Friday walks by a sign denouncing Senator Ted Cruz of Texas after he flew to Cancun while the state was in the grip of a major crisis
The digital billboard on the truck shows an image of Cruz wearing a sombrero hat while drinking a Corona beer
‘What happened this week to our fellow Texans is absolutely unacceptable and can never be replicated again,’ Abbott told an afternoon news conference.
The governor lashed out at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), a cooperative responsible for 90 per cent of the state’s electricity, which he said had told officials before the storm that the grid was prepared.
ERCOT officials have defended their preparations and the decision to begin forced outages Monday as the grid reached a breaking point.
Officials said during a press call on Friday that ERCOT has enough generation in its system to return to normal operations.
‘I really want to acknowledge this immense human suffering we saw throughout this event,’ ERCOT Chief Executive Bill Magness said at a news conference on Friday.
‘When people lose power, there are heartbreaking consequences.’
Two community hospitals that are part of the Houston Methodist system in Texas’ largest city had to get ‘creative’ when their water supply was cut off this week, said Public Relations Director Stefanie Asin.
A shower trailer was brought in for frigid, exhausted staff, and laundry bins were deployed to collect rainwater to flush toilets.
As of Friday, water service had been restored at those hospitals, Asin said in an interview.
‘The water will be challenging,’ she said.
‘We’ve handled it so far, we’ll continue handling it. … But we’ll still need to take precautions.’