Power gradually restored but hundreds of households remain without electricity

Houston, Feb 18 (AFP/APP): Power was gradually being restored but hundreds of thousands of households remained without electricity early Thursday across Texas, the oil and gas capital of the United States, with some facing water shortages as a deadly winter cold spell that pummeled the southeastern part of the country headed east.

The National Weather Service (NWS) issued a winter storm warning for a swathe of the country ranging from east Texas to the East Coast state of Maryland. The NWS said the storm would bring ice, sleet and heavy snow to parts of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi as it tracks to the northeast, causing power outages, tree damage and making driving hazardous.

Even though the Arctic air mass was beginning to lose its grip on an area of the country not used to such extreme cold, the frigid temperatures would continue, the NWS said. “Record cold daily maximum and minimum temperatures are likely to transpire in the South Central US through Saturday morning,” it said early Thursday.

“The Plains and Mississippi Valley can expect daily temperature anomalies ranging between 20 and 30 degrees below normal.” President Joe Biden was forced to postpone until Friday a visit to the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine manufacturing site in Kalamazoo, Michigan, while federal government offices in Washington were to be closed Thursday. More than 30 storm-related deaths have been reported by media in the United States since the cold weather arrived last week, many in traffic accidents.