Saturday morning, temperatures can be as low as 20 degrees for many domestic locations, including Dallas and College Station, but the welcome return of onshore winds and full sunshine will warm the state into the 50s and 60s in the afternoon, CNN meteorologist said. Derek Van Dam. Most of the state remains above freezing after that initial thaw.
A weak cold front is expected on Sunday evening, but this is expected to have only minimal consequences.
Smita Pande in Austin told CNN that she lost power to her house early in the week, and she and her husband stayed at a friend’s house until water was lost. The group then traveled to another friend’s house that had operational utilities until their water supply went down as well. The three households returned to Pande’s home, where they relied on gathering snow to melt to flush their toilets.
Although power has now been restored, Pande learned that the wait for water could take a few days.
“Right now we plan to get water in a week, we have to start from the worst-case scenario,” Pande told CNN’s Don Lemon in an interview on Friday. “We hear at this point for two or three days, we will hope for the best.”
Race to restore utilities
Dr. Schuwan Dorsey told CNN that she lost power and water early Monday and resorted to sleeping with her two dogs in her car, occasionally turning on the engine to generate heat.
Her Life Alert bracelet was offline because the electricity in her house was out, Dorsey also said.
“My health was in danger,” Dorsey said Friday, noting that she had only been on for three minutes on Wednesday. Electricity has since fully returned, but the water is still out.
With blown pipes and power outages, Austin Mayor Steve Adler told CNN that his city needs more water than any other source. When the power grid went down, it affected the main water treatment plant and the city’s reservoir was lost, Adler told CNN’s Poppy Harlow. Those who do have water are under cooking water advice.
“This is a community of people who are scared, upset and angry,” said Adler. “We will eventually need better answers to why we are here and how to prevent it from ever happening again. But for now, we’re just trying to get water.”
Williams said there are also staffing issues, as some workers have had to stay on site to care for patients, which put food, linens and water under pressure. Commissions and drug supplies were low, although a number of trucks will be running on Friday, Williams said.
State leaders respond to water crisis
Water disturbances are not expected to go away when freezing temperatures do: frozen pipes are cracked, but many are concerned that even more pipes will thaw if they thaw.
“We know there will be a high demand for plumbers tomorrow than this weekend in the coming days,” said the governor. “We want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to help you access the plumbers you need to fix your plumbing and leakage problems that way.”
The state is also encouraging testing of local water systems by partnering with the federal government and neighboring Arkansas, Abbott announced Friday.
In collaboration with the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, in agreement with Abbott, has set up three mobile water testing laboratories.