‘Skiing, rants and frozen solid denim jeans’: Texans react to horror icestorm

City of Richardson worker Kaleb Love breaks ice on a frozen fountain Tuesday, Feb. 16, 2021, in Richardson, Texas.
AP

An urgent turtle rescue, frozen jeans standing on their own two legs, dodging collapsing ceilings and skiing to work are how some Texans are surviving to get through their deep freeze storm.

A historic winter storm has killed at least 21 people, left millions of Texans without power and spun killer tornadoes into the US Southeast on Tuesday.

The brutal cold has engulfed vast swaths of the United States, shuttering COVID-19 inoculation centres and hindering vaccine supplies. It is not expected to relent until the weekend.

The mayor of a small Texas town resigned after he told residents they were owed "NOTHING" as many went without power or heat during the storm.

“No one owes you [or] your family anything,” Tim Boyd, the mayor of Colorado City, Texas, wrote Tuesday in a since-deleted Facebook post. "I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout!”

“The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING!" he said while urging residents to "step up and come up with a game plan" for acquiring power or heat.

“Only the strong will survive and the weak will [perish],” he added.

The comments drew fire after being shared from a private community Facebook group for city residents and the Republican mayor was forced to stand down.

Some Texans had walked through the thick snow to pick up supplies for neighbours or offered water from private wells.

Others went into urgent Turtle rescue mode with about 3,500 sea turtles saved and brought to the safety of dry land.

In cold temperatures, turtles can fall victim to a condition called a “cold stun,” when their body temperatures fall so low that they lose their ability to swim, eat or even hold their head above water.

“You could put a cold-stunned turtle in a half an inch of water and they’d drown,” said Wendy Knight, the executive director of Sea Turtle Inc.

Officials in Texas drew criticism as the state energy grid repeatedly failed, forcing rolling blackouts. Freezing weather stilled giant wind turbines that dot the West Texas landscape, making it impossible for energy companies to meet escalating demand.

University student Corbin Antu found a way to snowboard in the flat West Texas plains town of Lubbock. He clung to a tow rope as friends in a pickup truck pulled him up and down silent white streets.

“This is my first time snowboarding out in Lubbock. Trust me, it’s not disappointing,” Antu said. “There is so much powder out on the ground it feels like it’s Colorado almost.”

President Joe Biden assured the governors of hard-hit states that the federal government stands ready to offer any emergency resources needed, the White House said in a statement.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said at a midday news conference that 1.3 million people in his city remain without power. The city is looking for businesses that still have power to open their doors as warming centers.

“It’s critically, critically important to get the power restored as quickly as possible. It’s priority number one!” Turner said.

One chef went to his local supermarket to find all the stocks cleared out.

One man filmed himself playing drum rhythms on a frozen pair of jeans that stood on their own in the freezing cold of his apartment.

A Texan lineman one of the most fabled jobs steeped in Americana showed his day at work clearing ice off the lines in the normally baking hot desert.

One mother-of-seven filmed as the pipes burst in her apartment due to the cold pulling down her entire ceiling.

With more than 4.4 million power outages in Texas alone, authorities shut down inoculation sites and scrambled to use 8,400 vaccines that require subzero refrigeration before they spoiled after a backup generator failed, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said.

Doses were rushed to area hospitals and Rice University to be injected into the arms of people already at those locations and who did not have to travel on slick roads.

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