SNOVID-21
February 28, 2021
This post was written by Emily Cookston and Brian Harris. Emily and Brian are interns with the Alhambra US Chamber.
On February 15th, the state of Texas woke up to about 8 inches of snow. If you know anything about Texas, you know this is extremely rare. The next five days pushed its residents to their limits. President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in Texas. Pipes froze and burst in homes and hospitals causing flooding and irreplaceable damage. Houses, apartments, buildings, and hospitals lost power and water for days. Some Texans are still struggling to get water to this day. The Texas power crisis will not be forgotten for a very long time.
The freeze affected not only Texas, but everyone. COVID vaccines were delayed because of the freeze. Hospitals and nursing homes lost power, forcing them to use generators. In some cases, patients had to be evacuated to other areas. The huge blackout caused oil production to drop by 40%. Finding gas during these times was nearly impossible. Crude outputs dropped by 4 million barrels a day. The production of gas hit an all time low. “The gas shortage is so severe that Governor Greg Abbot on Wednesday banned sales of the fuel to power producers outside of the state.”(Bloomberg.com. (Para.14).
Personally, I live in Austin, Texas so I was affected by the storm as well. I was fortunate enough to be able to get to a home that had water. My home lost power from Monday to Friday. The home I was welcomed into had power on and off all week. Not losing water was a huge blessing for us. I watched as all my Texan friends reached out and we all helped each other as much as we could. It is beautiful to see so many people being generous and compassionate of their own resources and time in order to help others.
The only positive thing out of this challenging time was the true generosity and compassion that came from the Texans helping throughout their community. People drove to deliver food and water to people. They pulled stuck and abandoned cars out of ditches. People invited strangers into their homes to share the little food, warmth, and water they had. Restaurants provided free meals to those who could make the trip. Some were fortunate enough to keep both their water and power and put forth a huge community effort to help.
Curious how you can help those affected? The Dallas Wings WNBA Basketball team is raising money. Every donation they get is matched up to $6,000. Several food banks across Texas are looking for donations to help feed Texans. Including Central Texas Food Bank. With a donation of $50, 150 meals can be provided. The Austin Disaster Relief Network is looking for donations to help give gift cards in order to help people pay for the damages due to the storm. The American Red Cross is looking for people to donate blood and platelets. Please help if you can! (Paybarah, A. (2021, February 19)
