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| - The southeastern United States was bracing for a major winter storm on Wednesday as millions of people remained without power in Texas, the country's energy capital. The National Weather Service (NWS) issued winter storm warnings and advisories for more than 100 million Americans living in the US heartland. "Crippling" ice accumulations were possible in parts of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi, the NWS said, causing power outages, tree damage and making driving hazardous. It said an Artic air mass was beginning to lose its grip on an area not used to such extreme cold but the frigid temperatures were expected to continue. "Temperatures will still remain 20 to 35 degrees (Fahrenheit) below normal throughout the Plains, Mississippi Valley, and lower Great Lakes," the NWS said. More than 20 storm-related deaths have been reported since the cold weather arrived last week, including in traffic accidents in Texas, Kentucky and Missouri. Jeff Zients, the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, said the cold weather is impacting delivery and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines. "There's certain parts of the country, Texas being one of them, where vaccination sites are understandably closed," Zients said. "What we're encouraging governors and other partners to do is to extend hours once they're able to reopen." According to PowerOutage.US, more than 3.4 million customers were without power on Wednesday in Texas, the only one of the US's 48 continental states to have its own independent power grid. "More Misery Ahead," was the front page headline in the San Antonio Express-News. "Failures of Power," said the Houston Chronicle. Beto O'Rourke, a former Democratic presidential candidate from Texas, told MSNBC television the situation is "worse than you are hearing." "Folks have gone days now without electricity," he said. "They're suffering." "So much of this was avoidable," O'Rourke added. "The energy capital of North America cannot provide the energy needed to warm and power people's homes in this great state," he said. "We are nearing a failed state in Texas." Austin Energy, the local power company, said nearly 200,000 area customers were without electricity. "Customers should be prepared to not have power through Wednesday and possibly longer," it said. The energy company published the locations of "warming centers" set up in schools around the area. Power companies in Texas have implemented rolling blackouts to avoid grids being overloaded as residents cranked up electric heaters. "Spending my second night without power during the coldest weather in Southeast Texas in more than 30 years," Wes Wolfe, a newswriter in Lake Jackson, Texas, said on Twitter. "Eating half a falafel wrap by laptop light for dinner, before getting under my blankets, which are augmented by a heavy overcoat," Wolfe said. While electricity companies are struggling to get power restored, Austin-Bergstrom International Airport was to resume flights on Wednesday after a two-day hiatus caused by heavy snowfall. Many weather-related deaths so far have resulted from traffic accidents, but Houston police said a woman and a girl died from carbon monoxide poisoning after sitting in a car in a garage with the engine running to keep warm. A man in Louisiana died when he hit his head after slipping on ice, and a 10-year-old Tennessee boy perished after he and his six-year-old sister fell through the ice into a pond Sunday. The winter storm spawned at least four tornadoes, according to Atlanta-based weather.com, including one in coastal North Carolina late Monday that killed at least three people and injured 10. Across the southern border, Mexican officials said six people died after temperatures plunged. Four died in Monterrey, three of them homeless people who succumbed to exposure, and one person who died at home from carbon monoxide poisoning from a heater. Two agricultural workers died in neighboring Tamaulipas from hypothermia. cl/wat
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