New York Times on February 19th published a report entitled “Extremely cold weather causes some Texas residents to die in bedrooms, cars and backyards”.
In extreme cold weather, many Texas residents were found to have frozen to death in bedrooms, cars and backyards, and the world is miserable. The play is constantly on. The full text is excerpted as follows:
Carol Anderson, a 75-year-old Army veteran, spent most of her life in southeastern Texas, where the most worrying natural disasters were hurricanes that formed from the Gulf of Mexico during warm months.
But recently, Anderson, who relies on oxygen cylinders to maintain breathing, knows that another storm is hitting him.
To be prepared, he ordered a new oxygen cylinder, but it never arrived.
However, outside his first floor brick house in Crosby, Texas, the pickup truck also has a spare oxygen cylinder on it.
So when Anderson is found dead in his pickup truck, his stepdaughter guesses that he was going outdoors to get the spare oxygen cylinder.
He usually used oxygen bottles indoors, and the night before, when a deadly cold current hit most of Texas, his house was powered off.
In the blizzard-hit area extending from Texas to Ohio, including Anderson, at least 58 people have died from carbon monoxide poisoning, car accidents, drowning, house fire or hypothermia.
Although the final death toll may be much higher,
In Galveston County on the Gulf Coast of Texas, authorities said that two residents have died of exposure to severe cold, and one may have died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
The cause of death of another four people is still under investigation, which is likely to be related to the cold weather.
Judge Mark Henry, the top elected official in Galveston County, said he would evacuate some of the most vulnerable residents before a snowstorm if he knew that the power outage would cause the county to fall into darkness for several days.
He said that the Texas Electricity Stability Commission, which manages the Texas power grid, only warned that there would be rotating power outages. However, most residents have been out of power for at least 48 hours in their homes.
A spokesman for the Texas Electricity Stability Commission said on the 19th local time that the surge in demand put pressure on the grid, leading to a very serious crisis that “local power companies cannot carry outages in turn”.
At its peak, about 4 million Texas residents were unable to use electricity at the height of the temperature plummeted.
On the 19th, local time, about 165,000 people still had no electricity, and millions of people had no running water or were notified of boiling tap water – low water pressure may cause bacteria to penetrate into the drinking water system.
The crisis has given a clearer view of the different dimensions of a public health crisis exacerbated by poverty, despair and, in some cases, lack of understanding of the safety of severe cold weather.
From 15th to 17th local time, more than 700 people were admitted to Texas hospitals and health institutions, all of whom were related to carbon monoxide poisoning. Austin Fire Department chief Sayer Smith said there were dozens of incidents in the city where people burned charcoal in their homes resulting from poisoning.
The cold weather also hinders the response to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The White House said on the 19th local time that due to blizzards across the country, the delivery of 6 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine was delayed, resulting in a backlog of vaccination work in various states.
In Texas, hospitals everywhere have been struggling with problems such as pipe bursts, power outages and severe water shortages, so it is difficult to focus on treating patients.
Abilene authorities say a man died after he was unable to receive dialysis treatment at Hendrick Medical Center.
“Proper care for dialysis patients requires a large amount of filtered water in addition to electricity and heat, while hospitals are cut off water,” said Kend Floris, the head of the local fire department.
Elsewhere in Texas, a 69-year-old man was found dead at his home in a village south of San Antonio.
Authorities said that the man’s home had been cut off from electricity, and the temperature in his bedroom was only 35 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1.7 degrees Celsius) when he was found.
In Houston, Ethiopian immigrant Melsha was found dead in a car in his garage. When the police found her, she and her seven-year-old daughter had died of carbon monoxide poisoning.
Her husband and his 8-year-old son were taken to the hospital, and the boy is still in the intensive care unit.
In Conroe, Texas, near Houston, Christian Pineda, an 11-year-old boy, was found dead in his bed on the morning of the 15th.
Detective James Kellymen of Conroe Police Department said that the boy had to squeeze into a bedroom with his parents and siblings after the power was cut off at the previous night.
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