An extreme snow storm hit the south of the United States, especially last week. Texas has been particularly hard hit as the government has taken no action against it. Usually it is at least plus six degrees warm there in February. But on February 17th it was partly minus 18 degrees. The supply of electricity and tap water has collapsed.
On 02/22 4.4 million people had no electricity. It's as if nobody in Berlin and Stuttgart can turn on the lights. All possible areas of life and the household such as the preparation of food were no longer possible or only possible under very difficult circumstances. In videos you can see a man cooking food in his fireplace over the flame. This is a nice option for people who have a fireplace. Whole working-class neighborhoods and outskirts of cities were completely dark while the skyscrapers in downtown Houston were brightly lit. The heaters failed and the cold penetrated the houses. People couldn't just sit out the situation and wait until everything changes for the better. Their survival was threatened. A woman has sat in the car in the garage with her daughter and let the engine run so as not to freeze to death. Both choked on the nitrogen oxides. People started a fire to warm up and died because the fire got out of control. Electricity suppliers took advantage of the catastrophic supply situation and are driving prices into astronomical heights
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Tap water was no longer available for many households. At first there was only cold, unclean water. From the Austin government came the urgent advice that tap water should no longer be drunk because it is unclean. One should boil it, so the hint. Without electricity, this is of course a very helpful tip. Due to the extreme sub-zero temperatures, the water pipes burst and many houses were under water. Especially in the houses of the poorer people, the pipes are not insulated against the cold. The walls and ceilings through which the pipes ran broke. The “St. David's” hospital in Austin had to evacuate patients. Of course, no water also means that you can no longer flush the toilet.
The streets were so icy that workers could no longer come to work, which in the USA usually means no more money. On Interstate 35 near Fort Worth, five people died in a pile-up in which over 100 vehicles collided. That was on Thursday, February 24th. Most recently, the streets were sprinkled with road salt on Tuesday two days earlier.
It's winter and it's getting cold. Even if it has not been so cold in 30 years, it is quite possible to be prepared for such a situation. In 1989 and 2011 there was also snow chaos in Texas. The government already stated in 2011 that one should be better prepared for winter. Today - ten years later - absolutely nothing has changed and you are faced with the same problem. The hegemonic superpower USA is not interested in providing its own population with a secure, constant supply network and roads that are prepared for extreme winters. People died from preventable causes. The people froze to death while empty office buildings were heated. Even when the weather warms up again, many workers are still living in the houses and apartments ruined by the water leaks, many of which were just restored after the flood caused by Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
The comrades from the United Neighborhood Defense Movement (UNDM) and Popular Women’s Movement (PWM) have set up two emergency houses to warm up in two different working class neighborhoods and have come into contact with the masses. They denounced the reaction with slogans like "It's your crisis but we are the ones who have to pay for it" UNDM hung up a banner with the title: "The criminal ERCOT makes millions, while millions of people are freezing!" (ERCOT is an electricity supplier who is responsible for mismanagement, for example not making the supply network winter-proof). The comrades also gave drinks and blankets. They also helped local residents extinguish an out of control fire that they were doing so as not to freeze to death.
