Page 6 - Schaefer Edwards News Today

“Members of our community died in this disaster, and millions of Texans languished without power and water while suffering billions in property damage,” Menefee said in a statement. “Harris County residents deserve to know what happened, who made which decisions, and whether this could have been avoided or mitigated.” Menefee’s investigation will look to “identify all responsible parties” for the state’s power crisis, with a particular focus on the Public Utility Commission (whi...

On Monday, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner shared the good news that the massive COVID-19 vaccine super site run by the Federal Emergency Management Association is still set to open this week at NRG Stadium as planned. Meanwhile, Harris County Commissioner Adrian Garcia asked Commissioners Court to start considering a Harris County exit from the Texas power grid, and another Texan politician got caught red-handed skipping town during the statewide blackouts. ...

After a weekend of mostly sunny skies, Texans are thankful to be on the other side of a week of devastating cold that brought the state to its knees. Across greater Houston, residents who are glad to have made it through this latest Lone Star crisis are still surveying the damage and picking up the pieces. On Sunday afternoon, the city of Houston finally declared its water was safe for human consumption after most of the city had been on a boil notice since Wednesday morning, as directed by the...

In their latest updates on the horrible winter weather still lingering over much of Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott and Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo both said that while we should celebrate the fact that most Texans and 99.5 percent of all local CenterPoint Energy customers will go to bed with electricity buzzing in their homes Thursday night, those gains don’t mean this crisis is over just yet. “You need to know there will be more cold temperatures in various regions across the state of Texas ...

Houston Chronicle has reported that at least 25 people have died this week across Harris, Galveston and Brazoria counties due to the devastating winter storm. On Tuesday morning, 11-year-old Cristian Pavon was found lifeless in bed inside his powerless Conroe home, his family wrote on a GoFundMe page set up by the deceased boy’s relatives. The fundraiser’s organizer wrote that the donations will be used to send Pavon’s body back to Honduras, his family’s home country, where he longed to...

Despite some modest gains in the state’s electricity output as generators come back online, elected officials warned Wednesday that both the disastrous power outages and the lack of safe (or any) water many Houston residents are still facing could easily last until this weekend. “Residents still need to be prepared to go a couple more days without power,” said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo in a Wednesday update on the still unfolding disaster. That’s because even though ERCOT (the El...

In a Thursday update on Houston’s winter storm response, Mayor Sylvester Turner celebrated that most city residents finally have electricity again, but warned that locals may still have to boil their water for safe consumption through this weekend or into next week. He also warned about the one last hard freeze set for Thursday night and cautioned folks to take precautions to prevent busted pipes that could damage homes and further set-back the city water pressure issues. Most of the city of ...

GREAT NEWS: Most Harris County homes have power right now. 46k in our region are still down. Theres still a possibility of power losses, but that has been reduced. Centerpoint tells me that everyone cut because of #ERCOT orders is back on. Crews are working on remaining homes.— Lina Hidalgo (@LinaHidalgoTX) February 18, 2021 CenterPoint has been quick to caution that even though power was coming back online, Texas still isn’t close to 100 percent power generation, so there’s still the cha...

In a stark warning, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and CenterPoint Energy cautioned area residents Tuesday night that the catastrophic power outages affecting more than a million locals could be with us even longer than the hellaciously cold weather dumped on Texas by an unprecedented winter storm. “Let me give it to you straight, based on the visibility I have: Whether you have power or not right now, there is a possibility of power outages even beyond the length of this weather,” Hidalg...

City Public Works director Carol Haddock explained that state rules from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality mean that the boil notice can’t be immediately lifted even once the system regains enough pressure to ensure the water coming to consumers can be sufficiently treated and sanitized. She said once the water pressure gets back to an acceptable level, the city has to take water samples and send them into the state. “We have to then let them sit in the laboratory for 24 hours ...