February 17, 2021 • No Comments • National News

ABC NewsBy MAX GOLEMBO and EMILY SHAPIRO, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — The South, still digging out from snow and ice that brought the region to a standstill this week, is getting slammed by a second winter storm on Wednesday.

This new storm already brought up to 9 inches of snow to Amarillo, Texas, and up to 6 inches of snow near Oklahoma City.

Freezing rain is falling in both Austin and San Antonio, Texas, where everything is covered in a layer of ice.

Later in the day, the ice and snow will move into Louisiana, Mississippi, northern Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky.

Little Rock, Arkansas, along with Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee, could see 6 inches of snow.

Wednesday evening, severe thunderstorms, damaging winds and tornadoes are possible along the Gulf Coast from New Orleans to Mobile, Alabama.

The winter weather has left over 2.9 million in Texas without power on Wednesday. Outages also extend to Kentucky, West Virginia, Louisiana, Virginia, Mississippi and Ohio.

At least 22 states have delayed or canceled some vaccinations due to weather.

Houston’s COVID-19 testing and vaccination sites will be closed Wednesday and Thursday, officials said. Houston schools will also be closed Wednesday and Thursday, with no virtual or in-person instruction.

President Joe Biden had a phone call with several governors of the states affected by the weather, including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards, the White House said Tuesday evening.

Biden said the administration was “prepared to assist and stands ready to respond to requests for Federal assistance from the governors and will deploy any additional Federal emergency resources available to assist the residents of their states in getting through this historic storm.”

Thursday morning, the storm moves to the East Coast.

Heavy snow will begin in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York City Thursday morning and continue into the afternoon.

An icy mix with freezing rain and sleet is expected from Richmond, Virginia, to Raleigh, North Carolina.

Philadelphia and New York could see 5 to 7 inches of snow. D.C. and Boston are expected to get 3 to 6 inches

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February 16, 2021 • No Comments • National News

edelmar/iStockBy WILLIAM MANSELL, ABC News

(ABILENE, Texas) — City officials in Abilene, Texas, announced Monday night that all city water services had been shut off due to the historic winter storm and subsequent power outages.

The city water services were shut down at 7 p.m. local time “as a result of power outages from both power sources at all three of [the] water treatment plants,” the city said in a statement.

Power has been restored to one water plant as of 11 a.m. Tuesday and crews are working with the “goal of restoring service to most of the city by [the] end of the day.”

The city asks residents keep faucets closed until they are notified it’s safe to do so. It said this “will allow pressure to build faster and expedite the process for everyone.”

When the water is restored, the city said a boil water notice will be in effect until further notice.

Abilene, which is located about three hours west of Dallas, has a population of more than 123,000 people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Hours before the water was shut off, officials pleaded with residents to only use “essential” water because the city’s supply was running dangerously low.

“Your efforts to conserve water will assist the City in ensuring continued water service. Failure to curtail usage will result in loss of water service,” the city said in a statement earlier Monday. “Please forego baths, showers, and other non-life sustaining uses. Use water only for drinking and cooking.”

Abilene and much of Texas are still without power as the state deals with record cold.

“If you are currently experiencing an outage, you will likely be out of power for an extended period of time while this state of emergency continues,” AEP Texas, a utility company, said in a statement Monday.

As of 10 p.m. ET, more than 4.4 million customers are without power in Texas.

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February 16, 2021 • No Comments • National News

ABC NewsBy MAX GOLEMBO and EMILY SHAPIRO, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — Nearly 40 states are on alert for snow, ice and bitter cold as about 70.4% of the U.S. is covered by snow.

The South is still digging out from snow and ice that hit earlier this week, closing vaccination sites and bringing roads to a standstill — but a second storm is closing in.

Overnight, a storm brought several reported tornadoes to Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. At least three people were killed from the reported twister in North Carolina, Gov. Roy Cooper said.

That same storm is moving through the Northeast Tuesday with ice and snow for inland areas and just mild rain for the Interstate-95 corridor.

Additional snow and ice will hit northern New England where 6 to 10 inches of snow is possible through Tuesday afternoon.

Meanwhile, a record-breaking cold snap is slamming the central U.S.

The wind chill — what it feels like — plunged Tuesday morning to minus 12 degrees in Little Rock, Arkansas, minus 11 degrees in Dallas, minus 15 degrees in Memphis, Tennessee and 0 degrees in Austin, Texas.

Early Wednesday morning, a second storm will move into the South, including Dallas, Oklahoma City and Little Rock, bringing more snow and ice.

Three to six inches of snowfall is possible for northern Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

Freezing rain and sleet is expected to extend from Dallas to Shreveport, Louisiana, to North Carolina and into Virginia.

By Thursday afternoon and evening, this new storm will reach the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeast with ice, snow and heavy rain.

The Interstate-95 corridor from Washington, D.C., to New York to Boston could see three to six inches of snow before the snow changes to rain.

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February 15, 2021 • No Comments • National News

Houston MethodistBY: SASHA PEZENIK AND IVAN PEREIRA, ABC NEWS

(HOUSTON) — Health officials in Texas scrambled to administer over 5,000 vaccine doses before they expired after the harsh winter storm hitting the state knocked out the power of the freezers storing the vaccines.

Harris County public health officials said that their facility that stored the Moderna vaccine lost power early Monday morning and a backup generator also failed. The freezers that kept 8,430 vaccine doses at their containment temperature were among the affected equipment, they said.

“We got to work under the mission to avoid losing those vaccines with the loss of power, and we quickly put together a plan to allocate and to salvage them,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said at a news conference Monday evening.

The judge said county officials put a plan a place to “expedite” allocation of those vaccines to locations where there were large groups of people, and that didn’t require too much driving, and with appropriate medical personnel on site to administer the doses.

“We were looking for places where there were already large numbers of people, or where there were, nurses, trained medical professionals who could administer the vaccines, and where we wouldn’t need folks to drive somewhere in this very dangerous weather and road conditions,” Hidalgo said.

Officials were able to distribute 5,410 doses from the affected facility to four designated centers. The Harris County Jail received 3,000 doses, Methodist Hospital received 1,000, Rice University received 810, doses and 600 doses went to LBJ Hospital and Ben Taub hospital, according to Hidalgo.

The remaining doses were saved after the health officials got some promising news from Moderna, according to the judge.

“They gave us updated guidance, specific to us, that the vaccine supply [that] we thought we were going to lose in a few hours, we could actually re-refrigerate, and administer later to our waitlist,” Hidalgo said. “So roughly half…of the vaccines have been distributed, and the rest have been put back in storage for distribution per our normal process.”

The state has been hit with power problems all weekend following a winter storm that dropped several inches of snow and brought temperatures to below freezing. Power outages in the state have impacted at least 3.6 million customers as of 5:30 p.m. ET.

Officials said that some Texas customers would not have power for the rest of the day.

ABC News’ Timmy Truong contributed to this report.

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February 15, 2021 • No Comments • National News

ABC NewsBy MAX GOLEMBO, ABC News

(NEW YORK) — There are two storms moving across the country along with a historic cold blast that has not been seen in parts of the South in decades.

The first storm brought record breaking snowfall this weekend for Seattle, Portland, Oregon and into Oklahoma and Texas along with the most snow in Seattle since 1969.

In Texas and Oklahoma, 6 to 10 inches of snow fell from San Angelo to Oklahoma City where the snow paralyzed the region.

In Oklahoma City, the temperatures remained below 20 degrees for more than seven days, comparable only to the cold outbreak in 1905 and in the late 1800s, according to the National Weather Service.

On Monday, 43 states are on alert for snow, ice and bitter cold.

The storm that brought all the snow and ice to Seattle, Portland, Oklahoma City and Dallas will move into the Ohio Valley Monday and into the Northeast Monday night with ice and snow.

An ice storm warning has been issued for Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York where a half an inch of ice accretion is possible.

A winter storm warning has also been issued for Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Cincinnati and Nashville, Tennessee where some areas could see more than a half a foot of snow.

A second storm is expected to move into the South by Wednesday with more ice and snow for Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee.

This second storm moves into the Northeast by Thursday with snow changing to rain from Washington, D.C. to Boston and all snow for the inland Northeast from Pennsylvania to Maine.

With these two storms affecting most of the lower 48 states, a lot of ice and snow is expected to fall this week from Washington to Texas and up to Maine.

The heaviest snow from these two storms will be in western New York state and into the mountains of Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine where more than a foot can accumulate.

Heavy snow is also expected in the Cascades and northern Rockies.

There will be historic record-breaking cold on Monday night that will occur from the Plains down to Texas and into Alabama where these temperatures have not been seen for decades.

Here are the wind chills for Tuesday morning across the country:

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