Right now on the 411, the Houston area
and most of Texas feeling an Arctic
cold front, temperatures have been
below freezing for
nearly 24 hours.
And take a look, it is so cold.
The fountain that Bob Smith Park in
downtown Houston is partially frozen.
Actually, I shot some of that video
this morning. That was at about 10:00
AM. My hands still haven't
thought out. I should.
I could say it's as cold as it looks,
but that would be a lie. It's colder.
You should have stayed in the
car when you took such a rookie.
Right. Thanks for
joining us on the
411. I'm sure Minchow win for Reiki
Murat. And I'm Ron Trevino.
A hard freeze warning remains
in effect for all of Southeast
Texas through tomorrow morning.
We've got live team coverage helping
you navigate this Arctic blast.
Let's start with our weather team.
Kim Castro, David Paul.
What's the latest, Kim.
Yeah, we have been trying to fight the good
fight to get above freezing for today,
but we are not doing that at Bush's
current temperature right now, 31 degrees.
Now we're starting to cool off.
We'll lose that sunshine and you know the
drill things are going to get a whole lot.
Cooler as we head into tonight yet
again a couple spots did manage to
barely get above freezing right now.
33 degrees for hobby Sugar Land
sitting at 33 as well the island 34
but that breeze is staying nice and
sturdy right around 20 miles an hour.
Sustained winds over at Bush right now.
Sugarland 15.
Those gusts up and over 30 miles
an hour for hobby for the island.
And so you know the deal.
It does feel colder than the actual air
temperature, reads wind chill right now.
In the teens for several spots.
Bush feeling like 19.
Same deal for Brenham.
Low 20s for Pearland,
for hobby and for the island.
Like you said,
that hard freeze warning through tomorrow,
and that's just not here locally.
But Dave,
it's looking like it is a chilly
holiday for us across the board.
Ohh, Kim. It's been statewide here,
the way temperatures have
moved over the past 12 hours.
Now at 4:00 AM this morning,
Houston, Bush recalls.
Continental Airport stood at 17,
Dallas was at 11 and Amarillo was at three.
Then we bottomed out.
As we headed into the wee
morning hours towards sunrise,
that's Houston Bush intercontinental
hitting 15 degrees for a morning low.
That's three degrees colder than
we had forecast and only two
degrees warmer than the low we
set back in February of 2021,
so very cold overnight.
Dallas ended up with a low of 11 degrees.
Since then we have warmed up,
but we have not gotten above freezing.
We topped out at 32 at Bush,
right at the freezing mark,
stayed at freezing,
and now we're beginning to cool off,
back down to 31 degrees.
Currently wind chills.
You mentioned that it feels like 19 at Bush,
Dallas feels like 12.
That north wind continues to be
a factor and it just blows that
little layer of heat right off
of you as the wind blows and
that makes it feel colder than
the actual air temperature.
We'll show you how cold we're
going to go tonight.
We'll look ahead to Christmas
Eve and Christmas Day when we see
you again in a few minutes.
Alright, thank you so much Dave.
The city of Houston is extending
and consolidating services at
some of its warming centers,
acres home and the George R Brown.
Convention Center will stay
open until 9:00 AM on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Fondy and Moody community
centers will close at 9:00 AM tomorrow.
Anyone remaining at Fondy and Moody at
9:00 AM tomorrow will be taken by Metro
to the George R Brown Convention Center,
where they will stay until Sunday.
And happening right now, a boil water
notice is in effect in the Katy area.
It's all because of a drop in water
pressure. Adam Bennett is live in Katie
Adam. Do officials have any idea
when they might lift this notice?
Ron getting the all clear
from the state usually takes
between 24 to 48 hours at least.
That's according to a lawyer for
one of the districts that issued
this boil water notice today.
But he adds that the freezing
conditions seen all around Texas
and impacting other water districts
may impact that timeline here.
So we put that caveat in there.
Now the full sure municipal
municipal utility District 3A,
they blame these extremely cold
temperatures for the boil water notice.
They issued,
they point out that they buy their
water from the water plant at the
municipal utility district next door.
That's the Willow Creek farms.
That community water system serves
more than 3000 customers and they
also issued their own boil water
notice around 8:30 this morning.
It was actually a news alert.
We saw it on her phone and then again on
Facebook through the neighborhood page.
What do you think when you saw that?
I was like, Dang it,
we forgot to fill in the bathtub.
So we're pulling out all the water
and stuff from the garage that
we had set aside for, you know,
the Hurricanes that never happened this year.
Thank you. And
a lawyer reaching out on behalf of
the municipal utility district told
me that an electrical issue with a
booster pump at their water plant is
what caused a break in the pumps shaft,
and then that led to the drop
in water pressure.
He also told me that the district is
still working to determine the cause
of that initial electrical issue.
And the attorney also told me that
the MUD's operator has reestablished
normal water pressure and that
they've coordinated with the TCQ,
the state Environmental Agency,
to start testing those samples,
which is what's needed.
Lift that boil water.
Notice again.
State officials tell me that process
typically takes about 24 hours.
Ron.
Alright. Thank you so much.
Adam Bennett. The Flamingo Lakes
area in Montgomery County is
also under a boil water notice.
People living in that area should
boil their water before drinking.
Officials there say the pressure
tank froze early this morning
and was restored at around 8:30.
So how is the power grid holding up?
Well, let's take a look at Arcots main page,
where it has all of its different dashboards.
And this is the supply and the demand.
There was a situation around 8:00
AM that got a lot of attention.
That blue demand line on the
bottom here got kind of narrow
next to the purple supply line.
So right about in here and that area it
was hovering at about 4000 MW buffer
between the two at 3000 megawatts.
When that buffer is that low,
that's when a large starts alerts,
starts sounding.
So what happened,
I asked our energy expert.
The coal-fired power plants
are 50 years old. The
natural gas fired plants averaged
30 years in age and so they are at the
end of their operational lives. These
could break and again that's what
happened this morning. We had some plants
go offline that was unexpected.
That's why we had the big price
hike and the wholesale market.
So when those two lines got close together,
when that buffer got narrow, here is a
look at the corresponding price spike.
Energy prices skyrocketed 50 times
over just a few hours this morning.
Translation. Wholesale prices hit $3.70
versus the typical $0.14 per kWh.
Now, the good news, of course,
is that that price spike
went down just as quickly.
But when your power bill comes next month,
expect an increase because the bottom line
is you and I will pay for this right here.
So what? What right this time?
And what is problematic in
this whole equation?
I'll have that at 5:00 and 6:00 o'clock.
Well, a lot of people in the Houston area
lost power overnight and in some cases
it took hours for power to be restored.
Gerald Harris is live in northeast Houston
where one neighborhood had no power overnight
and throughout much of the day. Gerald.
Yeah, neighbors here tell me that
their neighbors just right across
the street had did had power,
but on this side of the street they did
not have power for more than 16 hours.
Center point crews are
fully staffed and working
to restore power to those without it.
But it was a tough set of circumstances
for folks living in the Songwood
neighborhood on the east side of Houston.
Power for people living here went out
yesterday between 6:00 and 7:00 PM,
and throughout the deep freeze,
families had to bundle up with blankets,
jackets, even pets.
And wait, it's sunny, it's nice,
it's cold, but that's about it.
And yet, here we are without power.
But the power being out
didn't last much longer.
As our cameras were recording.
Their power was restored after many hours.
In the cold.
Goodness.
Hopefully it stays on.
Hopefully.
Now Centerpoint is confirming that
Houston's electric grid system is
experiencing isolated outages as a
result of the strong wind caused by the
Arctic front that came through our area.
This morning. There were almost 20,000
center park customers without power,
but right now that number is closer to 6000.
In Houston. Gerald Harris, KHOU 11 news.
We have cold weather.
You want to make sure to check your tires,
and that's exactly what
lots of drivers are doing.
We spotted this long line of
cars checking tire pressure at
a discount tire on Westheimer.
Head over to ksu.com for cold
weather tips for your car and more.
And much of the country is
dealing with this winter weather.
In some places,
winter storms are creating a
headache for holiday travel.
Thousands
of flights have been cancelled
from California to New York.
Snow, wind and ice created a mess
in Chicago. O'Hare Airport more than
560 flights were cancelled just yesterday,
and even after the snow and rain stopped, the
extreme cold slows down airport operations.
So experts say to expect cancellations and
delays to stretch into, yeah, the weekend.