February 19th, local time, U.S. President Biden said that he planned to sign the Texas federal disaster relief assistance agreement as soon as he received the Texas governor’s federal assistance request document to help the state cope with extreme weather, power outages and public utility disruptions and start disaster relief operations as soon as possible.
As of 3:30 p.m. ET on the 19th, more than 170,000 users in Texas still had power outages, and residents in some areas have been outages for several days, according to PowerOutrages.us, which specializes in the United States.
In addition, the Texas Environmental Quality Commission reported that as of the afternoon of the 19th, more than 14.6 million people in Texas had been affected by the water supply disruption, and more than 1,225 public water supply systems in Texas had been disrupted due to weather reasons, affecting at least 161 counties.
So far, Biden has approved 254 counties in the state of emergency.
FEMA has also provided generators and fuel to the state’s disaster areas to support the construction of critical infrastructure.
As of the morning of the 19th, the Federal Emergency Management Agency had distributed 729,000 litres of water, more than 10,000 blankets and 50,000 cotton blankets, and provided 225,000 meals to Fort Worth, Texas.
Biden said he would travel to Texas to condolences to disaster relief and disaster victims.
