AUSTIN The slow-moving winter disaster pummeling Texas that began with snow, ice and widespread blackouts is now moving into a new phase: A dire lack of food and fresh water.
Supermarket chains that remained open in past disasters have shuttered in the face of power outages and impassable roads. Cities like Houston and Austin are on citywide water boil orders, even though many homes don’t have power. And stores that are open are often lined with empty shelves, as delivery trucks struggle to reach them over still-icy roads.
Joe Giovannoli, 29, arrived at a Central Market supermarket in Austin at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, an hour-and-a-half before it opened. Minutes later, more than 200 people had lined up behind him in the biting 26-degree weather.
USA TODAY
AUSTIN The slow-moving winter disaster pummeling Texas that began with snow, ice and widespread blackouts is now moving into a new phase: A dire lack of food and fresh water.
Supermarket chains that remained open in past disasters have shuttered in the face of power outages and impassable roads. Cities like Houston and Austin are on citywide water boil orders, even though many homes don’t have power. And stores that are open are often lined with empty shelves, as delivery trucks struggle to reach them over still-icy roads.
Joe Giovannoli, 29, arrived at a Central Market supermarket in Austin at 8:30 a.m. Thursday, an hour-and-a-half before it opened. Minutes later, more than 200 people had lined up behind him in the biting 26-degree weather.
Just crippling : Texans devastated by ice storm are now hunting empty shelves for food and water Rick Jervis, USA TODAY
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AUSTIN The slow-moving winter disaster pummeling Texas that began with snow, ice and widespread blackouts is now moving into a new phase: A dire lack of food and fresh water.
Supermarket chains that remained open in past disasters have shuttered in the face of power outages and impassable roads. Cities like Houston and Austin are on citywide water boil orders, even though many homes don’t have power. And stores that are open are often lined with empty shelves, as delivery trucks struggle to reach them over still-icy roads.
1. “An Evolving Situation”
There are three moments in the yearlong catastrophe of the
COVID-19 pandemic when events might have turned out differently. The first occurred on January 3, 2020, when Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spoke with George Fu Gao, the head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which was modelled on the American institution. Redfield had just received a report about an unexplained respiratory virus emerging in the city of Wuhan.
The field of public health had long been haunted by the prospect of a widespread respiratory-illness outbreak like the 1918 influenza pandemic, so Redfield was concerned. Gao, when pressed, assured him that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission. At the time, the theory was that each case had arisen from animals in a “wet” market where exotic game was sold. When Redfield learned that, among twenty-seven reported cases, there were several famil