Texas declares state of emergency as dangerous winter storm causes power outages for millions 

For the first time all 254 counties in Texas are under a winter storm warning, while hundreds of flights have been cancelled

Credit: Eric Gay /AP

More than two million people in Texas have been left without power, as a fearsome winter storm has sent temperatures plummeting to -18 degrees and plunged vast swathes of the state in darkness.

A state of emergency has been declared and President Joe Biden has ordered federal assistance to supplement local response efforts.

In a statement this morning, ERCOT, Texas’s main electricity supplier said: “Energy conservation is critical. Rotating outages are underway to reduce demand on the electric system. Traffic lights and other infrastructure may be temporarily without power.”

“Every grid operator and every electric company is fighting to restore power right now,” said ERCOT President and CEO Bill Magness.

The Lone Star State has experienced chaos over the last week.

First responders cleanup after a massive pileup on I-35W Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021, near downtown Fort Worth, Texas.

Credit: Yffy Yossifor/Star-Telegram via AP

For the first time all 254 counties are under a winter storm warning, while hundreds of flights have been cancelled. 

On Sunday, there were nearly 120 car accidents in Houston alone, while on Thursday, icy roads led to a massive crash involving more than 100 vehicles in Fort Worth, killing six people and leaving dozens more needing hospital treatment.

A convention centre has been made available for homeless people looking to escape the cold.

"The window to prepare for this historic storm has closed as the time to hunker down is here," Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said on Sunday evening.

Temperatures have plummeted because of an "Arctic outbreak" which started in Canada, but has been pulled down the country by weather systems.

In a statement, the US National Weather Service said: “An unprecedented and expansive area of hazardous winter weather continues into Presidents Day as disruptive snow and ice accumulations transpire across the South Central U.S. early this morning. 

“This impressive onslaught of wicked wintry weather across much of the Lower 48 is due to the combination of strong Arctic high pressure supplying sub-freezing temperatures and an active storm track escorting waves of precipitation from coast-to-coast.”

The Arctic blast has seen temperatures drop across most of Texas to their lowest point in 30 years, but some areas have experienced the coldest weather in more than a century.

Amarillo will see a high temperature of just -17C, breaking the city’s previous record of -11C that was set in 1895, a forecaster from the service’s Weather Prediction Centre, Marc Chenard, told Reuters news agency.

But the cold temperatures are not just affecting Texas.

Nearly 170 million people are under winter weather advisories across the United States, and emergency declarations in at least seven states, including Alabama, Oregon, Oklahoma, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi and Texas.