Texas’ Power Grid Crumples Under the Cold; Millions W/O Power, Cell Phone Service Disrupted[UPDATED]
[UPDATE (2021-02-16 14:46:07 UTC): mea culpa! Corrected temperature comparison of Boca Chica vs. Chicago. Also, noted and corrected temperature error in quoted text. --martyb]
Boca Chica, Texas is located at the southernmost point in Texas and is where SpaceX builds and launches its next-generation Starship orbital rockets. At 2:30 PM local time, the predicted high temperature for the day was 17F (-8.3C) which was colder than nearly as cold as Chicago, Illinois where the day's high temperature was predicted to reach 15F (-9.4C) .
upstart writes in with an IRC submission:
Millions without power in Texas as snow storm slams US:
Temperatures nosedived into the single-digits as far south as San Antonio, [Texas] and homes that had already been without electricity for hours had no certainty about when the lights and heat would come back on, as the state's overwhelmed power grid throttled into rotating blackouts that are typically only seen in 100-degree Fahrenheit (38-degree Celsius) summers.
The storm was part of a massive system that brought snow, sleet and freezing rain to the southern Plains and was spreading across the Ohio Valley and to the Northeast.
[...] In Houston, where county leaders had warned that the deteriorating conditions could create problems on the scale of massive hurricanes that slam the Gulf Coast, one electric provider said power may not be restored to some homes until Tuesday.
[...] Several cities in the U.S. saw record lows as Artic[sic] air remained over the central part of the country. In Minnesota, the Hibbing/Chisholm weather station registered minus 38 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 39 degrees Celsius), while Sioux Falls, South Dakota, dropped to minus 26 Fahrenheit (minus 26[sic -32] degrees Celsius).
In Kansas, where wind chills dropped to as low as minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 34 degrees Celsius) in some areas, Gov. Laura Kelly declared a state of disaster.
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