While most Texans are finally getting their power back, millions of people in the storm-ravaged state are facing an escalating water crisis after the historic Arctic outbreak that left pipes cracked and knocked water-treatment plants offline.
More than 14 million people in 160 Texas counties were still experiencing water-service disruptions Friday, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said.
Texas authorities ordered 7 million people -- a quarter of the population in the nation's second-largest state -- to boil tap water before drinking it because low water pressure could have allowed bacteria to seep into the system.
The extreme weather was blamed for the deaths of at least 60 people nationwide, including people struggling to get warm and a Tennessee farmer who tried to save two calves that apparently wandered onto a frozen pond. A man died at an Abilene, Texas, health care facility when a lack of water pressure made medical treatment impossible. Among the youngest victims was an 11-year-old who died in an unheated mobile home.
In the state capital of Austin, about 16,800 customers remain without power -- some for almost a week. Mayor Steve Adler said many residents face a dire situation.
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"It feels like it's just one thing after another after another," he said Friday on NBC's "Today" show.
While temperatures are expected to rise, Adler said he expected to find many burst water pipes and associated leaks. The city remains under a boil-water advisory.
In Dallas, David Lopez said the plumbing company he works for received more than 600 calls for service over the past week.
"It's pretty much first come, first served," said Lopez, as he and a colleague manhandled a new water heater out of their van Friday. "Everyone's got emergencies."
Houston residents probably will have to boil tap water in the fourth-largest U.S. city until Sunday or Monday, said Mayor Sylvester Turner.
Hospitals continue to struggle to stay open amid the power and water shortages. One hospital had to connect to a fire hydrant to maintain water pressure for the boilers, Adler said.
"We're doing better right now," he said. "But I'll tell you, it was really dicey, and it still is in some hospitals."
President Joe Biden told Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that he will "instruct additional federal agencies to look into any immediate steps" to help the state's residents, according to the White House.
EVEN AN EARTHQUAKE
Oklahoma, another state still recovering from the storms, was rattled by a 4.2-magnitude earthquake Friday. The quake struck just before 8 a.m. near Manchester, about 150 miles north of Oklahoma City. The same area experienced a magnitude-1.8 quake Wednesday.
In Mississippi, at least 100,000 customers are still in the dark, and Gov. Tate Reeves has called the deadly weather "a slow-moving disaster."
In Jackson, Miss., most of the city of about 161,000 had no running water. Crews pumped water to refill city tanks but faced a shortage of chemicals for treatment because icy roads made it difficult for distributors to deliver them, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said.
Lumumba laid blame on city water pipes that are more than 100 years old, saying they were not built to handle the freezing weather that the city was hit with as multiple storms dumped record amounts of snow across the South.
"We are dealing with an extreme challenge with getting more water through our distribution system," he said.
The city was providing water for flushing toilets and drinking, but residents had to pick it up, leaving the elderly and those living on icy roads vulnerable.
About 260,000 homes and businesses in Tennessee's largest county, which includes Memphis, were told to boil water because of water main ruptures and problems at pumping stations. Restaurants that can't do so or don't have bottled water were ordered to close. And water pressure problems prompted Memphis International Airport to cancel all incoming and outgoing Friday flights.
More than 192,000 Louisiana residents -- some still struggling to recover from August's Hurricane Laura -- had no water service Friday, according to the state health department. Tens of thousands more remained under boil-water advisories, according to the health department.
Bulk and bottled water deliveries were planned Friday to the hardest-hit Louisiana areas with a focus on hospitals, nursing homes and dialysis centers, Gov. John Bel Edwards said.
He said he was grateful that warmer weather was in the forecast for today.
"I expect that over the next several days, we will make repairs to the water systems and get things functioning as close to normal as possible," Edwards said in a live event with The Washington Post.
After six days of freezing temperatures, Shreveport Mayor Adrian Perkins got some much-needed good news Friday.
"Today, everyone should have some form of water pressure," said Perkins, who leads Louisiana's third-largest city. Still, the northwest corner of the state has much work to do. "This isn't over," the mayor said, noting that municipal water pressure will remain low into next week as the city scrambles to repair burst and leaking pipes.
Nearly half of Shreveport's 70,000 households had no water just three days ago; a quarter were still without it Friday morning.
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"It's been a rough one for us," said Perkins, recounting how roughly 6 inches of sleet and snow made local highways so slick that even National Guard troops and tankers couldn't reach the city with fresh water until Wednesday night.
Residents with four-wheel-drive trucks helped to pull ambulances out of ditches. Area oil and gas companies supplied some "gray water" to hospitals for heating systems.
Though it snows lightly there every few years, Perkins said Shreveport hasn't seen a cold snap this long since 1929. Eleven inches fell Dec. 21 of that year and remained on the ground for several days, giving the city its only white Christmas in recorded history.
"We are not prepared for this; our houses aren't built for this," he said. "As we move forward, we have some big questions to ask ourselves about how to prepare for the extremes of climate change."
But for now, he's focused on getting his constituents through the last day of frigid temperatures. "I cannot wait until tomorrow," he said Friday.
HEAT WAVE IN FLORIDA
As much of the south recovers, Florida is flirting with record heat before the cold arrives.
"It feels more like a June pattern more than February," said meteorologist Barry Baxter with the National Weather Service in Miami.
Baxter said Miami was expecting a high of 87 degrees Friday afternoon. "The record today is at 87 in 2012, so we are forecasting a near-record-high."
South Florida is already at 13 straight days of temperatures in the 80s, Baxter added, so Friday's steamy start makes it an even two weeks.
Then there is the heat index to concern yourself with, he said.
"The dew point ahead of the front will make it feel like the lower to mid-90s on the skin," Baxter said.
WSVN meteorologist Vivian Gonzalez said Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Key West could all approach or maybe break record-high temperatures.
"Even though we won't be as close in Fort Lauderdale and Key West, it will definitely feel steamy!" she posted on Twitter.
Fort Lauderdale could reach 86 degrees, and its record high is 89 set way back in 1926 -- also the year of the Great Miami Hurricane. In September 1926, Miami was devastated by a powerful hurricane whose storm surge spilled the Atlantic ocean all the way across Miami Beach into the Greater Miami area, the National Weather Service said.
Key West was forecast to hit 82 degrees Friday. The Southernmost City's record is 85 degrees set in 2020.
Relief, in the form of cold air, returns Friday night and early today in South Florida.
"We are forecasting lower to mid-60s," the weather service's Baxter said. Areas like the Redland or far-western Miami-Dade and parts of Broward should feel the lower part of the 60s.
Highs today and Sunday will reach only between 72 and 74 degrees, and the relative cool remains into the workweek with temperatures of about 76 degrees. Next Thursday would be the warmest day at 78 if the current forecast holds.
Information for this article was contributed by Timothy Bella, Marisa Iati, Derek Hawkins, Silvia Foster-Frau, Mark Berman and Katy Reckdahl of The Washington Post; by Paul J. Weber, Acacia Coronado, Andrew DeMillo, Adrian Sainz, Rebecca Santana, Gillian Flaccus, Jake Bleiberg, Ken Miller, Leah Willingham, Melinda Deslatte, Michael Warren and Tammy Webber of The Associated Press; and by Howard Cohen of the Miami Herald.
