Texas population forced to boil snow to get drinking water after shortage

Millions of people in Texas are facing a shortage of clean drinking water as they are forced to scrape snow off walls and boil it for drinking water besides long queues of motorists waiting for their turn to get water bottles.

The US state of nearly 14 million population was facing an acute water shortage after a record cold in Texas.

All the state’s power plants were functioning again after a five-day blackout, although more than 195,000 homes remained without electricity on Friday morning.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said that by Thursday, more than 1,000 Texas public water systems and 177 of the state’s 254 counties had reported weather-related operational disruptions.

However, with power restored, officials hope to replenish the state’s water supply.

Besides water shortage, it further emerged that some residents returned to homes only to find that the ceilings had collapsed because of water pipes that burst as a result of the record low, sub-freezing temperatures that engulfed the region over the course of the past week.

In Austin, hospital staffers were forced to use trash bags to vacate waste from the toilets while not being able to wash their hands or take a shower because of a lack of water after record snow.

More than two dozen sick patients who had been hospitalized in the state capital had to be transferred to other facilities owing to freezing temperatures in hallways.

‘Out of caution, yesterday we transported approximately 30 patients who were either vulnerable or could easily be cared for at another facility,’ David Huffstutler, the CEO of St. David’s HealthCare, said in an email.