40 Pics Showing How Texas Is Dealing With The Coldest Weather In Over 30 Years

At least 23 people have died since winter began unleashing its fury last week, some from the cold and some from attempts to escape it. And almost four million customers across the country remained without electricity on Tuesday evening, according to PowerOutage.us, which aggregates live power data from utilities.

More than 3.5 million of those outages were in Texas. There, many people had been without power for hours or even days in freezing temperatures. State leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott, expressed criticism of the operation of the state's power grid, and the Texas House speaker announced a legislative hearing looking into the widespread power failures.

Experts have begun to analyze what could have been the key factors behind the grid failures in Texas. It looks like record-breaking cold weather spurred residents to crank up their electric heaters and pushed demand for electricity beyond the worst-case scenarios that grid operators had planned for.

Simultaneously, many of the state's gas-fired power plants were knocked offline amid icy conditions, and some plants appeared to suffer fuel shortages as natural gas demand spiked nationwide. Also, many wind turbines in Texas froze and stopped working, although it's worth mentioning that this was a smaller part of the problem.

Some people, however, manage to find some joy during this struggle. Damian Syrianos, who is originally from Sag Harbor, NY, found himself in the middle of the havoc in Texas too, and he found a nice way to make the best out of the whole ordeal—he attached a rope to a car, hopped onto a snowboard, and went on to have some fun on the white streets.

"This is typical for me to do in NY when it snows with friends but not typical in Texas," he told Bored Panda. "I believe the last time they had this much snow was 1986. So I had to take full advantage of it, especially with plenty of experience to back it!"

"The storm hit us pretty hard, for Texas—I've been through much worse with fewer issues. The state not being prepared, shutting off power, and not having any plows to clear the roads so we can go to the grocery store are all huge issues, but I just took advantage of it and went snowboarding."

"So far, I haven't really left my house in 4 days other than to go to the grocery store," Damian added. "But there is a positive note. This is the first time I, an 'essential worker', don't have to go into work since COVID started!"

Coming back to snowboarding, Damian said it was amazing: "There was no one else driving around so no issues, got some sweet turns in and a whole lot of smiles.

"I'm a Greek-American regenerative farmer that's just starting out and looking to help the community in many ways. Hoping to put a smile on people's faces in any way I can," Damian explained.

Throughout the state, the National Guard has been deployed and 135 public warming centers have opened up to provide people with an escape from the frigid weather, although Covid-19 precautions remain in effect.

In Harris County, which includes the city of Houston, health workers scrambled to distribute Covid-19 vaccines as freezers lost power and backup generators failed. The county had to hurriedly administer 8,500 shots of the Covid-19 Moderna vaccine, which must be stored at temperatures between minus 13 degrees and 5 degrees Fahrenheit.

According to the USDA, Texas is the country's third-largest citrus-producing state behind California and Florida. Dale Murden, president of Texas Citrus Mutual, a trade group that represents the interests of citrus growers in the state, told AccuWeather that growers were "about 50% harvested to date on grapefruit," when the brutally cold weather hit early this week, and were "just beginning to harvest our late Valencia orange."

"Most everyone saw temps of 21 degrees for several hours," Murden, who also is a grower, said. "We will no doubt lose some of the crops as we are seeing some ice buildup inside the fruit."

According to Murden, when temperatures dip below 28 degrees and stay below that mark for five hours or longer, the fruit that is still on branches begins to freeze on the inside.

Citrus groves in Texas are largely situated in the Lower Rio Grande Valley in parts of Hidalgo, Cameron and Willacy counties, Murden explained. Several groves are located in Mission, a city of about 85,000 that is about 240 miles south of San Antonio, right along the border with Mexico. "Come and enjoy the warm weather," the city writes on its website.

Public transportation authorities in cities like San Antonio are modifying bus schedules, and in some cases, even pausing them altogether. Jeff Arndt, the chief executive of San Antonio’s transit authority, VIA, told the Guardian that informing riders of the changes to public transportation – like suspending all bus services Sunday evening and operating a weekend bus schedule on weekdays – will be a difficult challenge.

We can handle the logistics of getting people in and making sure the buses are fueled. It’s really getting the information to the customers," Arndt said.

But nothing in the history of Texas compares to February 12th, 1899.

The lowest temperature ever recorded in the state occurred at Tulia in Swisher County in the extreme southern Texas Panhandle. The thermometer dropped to 23 degrees below zero. However, there were unofficial reports that were even colder. Low temperatures of 30 degrees below zero were measured that night at Wolf Creek and at a site southeast of Perryton, both in Ochiltree County in the northern Panhandle. This cold air spread throughout the state with reports of a thin layer of ice coating most of Galveston Bay.

In fact, many Texas cities established all-time record low temperatures In February 1899.