Minnesotan living in Texas says conditions ‘worse than subzero’
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Taylor McCanna grew up in St. Louis Park and experienced an entire childhood of winters, but she told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the challenges she faces right now living in Houston are "much worse than getting through subzero temperatures."
"In Minnesota, our homes and infrastructure are built to withstand the really cold weather over long periods of time," McCanna said. "Down here, in Texas, we don’t have the same insulation around our pipes, our houses are designed to dissipate heat trying to keep the cool air in for the heavy summers."
McCanna said the cold in Texas, right now, is much different than the low temperatures she experienced growing up in Minnesota.
"Minnesota has a very cold but dry air and the temperatures in those conditions are a bit different than here," McCanna said. "In Houston, by the Gulf of Mexico, it’s cold but it is a very damp cold and that makes it feel much worse than up North."
Tony Clark grew up in Racine, Wisconsin and has lived in San Antonio for the past 30 years. He told KSTP it was still snowing there Thursday and temperatures had dipped down to 9 degrees earlier in the week.
City of Richardson workers prepare to work on a water main pipe that burst due to extreme cold in a neighborhood Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021, in Richardson, Texas. Water service providers in Tennessee, Oklahoma, Texas and other states hit hard by frigid winter storms and mounting power outages are asking residents to restrict usage as reports of water main breaks, low pressure and busted pipes emerge.[AP Photo/LM Otero]
Some power restored in Texas but water woes persist
"Everything is covered with snow. You see cement covered, rooftops and cars are just covered with white stuff and the streets are not even visible," Clark said. "Everything is literally covered and I can tell you it’s not anything I have ever seen before in my 30 years living here."
Both McCanna and Clark said it’s been much tougher handling the past two weeks in Texas than anything they experienced growing up in Minnesota and Wisconsin.
A half-million people in Texas, at one point or another, had lost power and many were dealing with bursting water pipes that froze under the extreme cold conditions for that part of the country.
CenterPoint Energy told KSTP they are not sending any crews to Texas because the bulk of the energy troubles were connected to not enough energy being produced by the Texas power grid and repairs of electrical lines and circuits were not the main problem.