​By: Charles Fragrassi

Around two weeks ago, the whole entire United States was hit with a pretty crazy snow storm, which sent a majority of Southern states into single digit temperatures. Texas, which as we know, is a historically warm state, was sent into shock during this snowstorm.

Texas is normally a warm state, so this means its houses and buildings don’t have as much insulation as the colder states do, and this led to floods, power outages and residents who could not rely on their home for a heat source. People have even slept in parking garages with their cars running all night just to be able to stay warm.

This storm did a lot more than some minor home inconveniences though. There have been about 35 cold weather related deaths in Texas alone from this storm.

Texas also had 400,000 COVID vaccines scheduled to be delivered, but those had to be halted until the weather was more permissible.

As for the amount of snow they actually got, it varied from half an inch all the way to 10 inches. That may not seem like a lot, because of the fact that we live in Minnesota, but for a state that rarely ever gets into below freezing temperatures, that can be a pretty big deal.

There were also over 100 car crashes, due to slippery roads, in San Antonio alone, along with frozen pipes and frozen water treatment plants leaving many Texans without clean water.

Luckily, this past week, things have started to take a turn for the better, because the temperatures are starting to warm up not only in Texas, but nationwide, so hopefully, for the sake of Texas, we have no more winter storms the rest of the year.

For more information, please visit:

• “What’s Going On in Texas?” ​slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/02/texas-snow-cold-blackouts-why.html
• “Deadly Winter Storm Strikes the U.S. What’s Going on?” ​www.deseret.com/u-s-world/2021/2/16/22285356/deadly-winter-storm-texas-northeast-forecast- what-happened