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Washington (AP) - Violent winter weather continues to cause problems in parts of the United States.
In the US state of Texas, hundreds of thousands of households and businesses were still lacking electricity on Thursday.
The website “poweroutage.us” recorded power outages in neighboring Louisiana and Mississippi, among others.
The situation improved compared to the previous days - but the weather also had an impact on the water supply.
In several cities in Texas, including the capital Austin, millions of people have been instructed to boil tap water before using it because of insufficient pressure.
In the town of Kyle, near Austin, there was a dramatic appeal to citizens: “Please only use water to sustain life.
We're about to run out of water in Kyle. "
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In the midst of the winter weather crisis, the prominent Texan Senator Ted Cruz received harsh criticism.
The Republican flew to Cancun, Mexico with his family on Wednesday.
Photos of the traveling senator received outraged comments on social media - he was accused of leaving the people and voters in his home state alone in the midst of dire need to enjoy himself in the sun.
Then Cruz got caught up in contradictions.
After hours of radio silence, the US media quoted a statement on Thursday in which Cruz justified the trip as a fatherly duty.
Since school lessons were canceled, his daughters wanted to go on a trip with friends.
Because he wanted to be "a good father", he flew with them.
He told the TV broadcaster Telemundo on Thursday before his return flight to Texas that he had only dropped his daughters in Cancun and was now on his way "to try to get the electricity back on".
He later told reporters that he was going to spend the weekend with the family in Mexico.
But he had doubts “almost as soon as I got on the plane”.
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In a radio interview earlier this week, Cruz warned: “Up to 100 people could be killed in Texas this week, so don't risk it, keep your family safe and just stay home and press Your children. "
The Republican was his party's presidential candidate for the 2016 election. He later emerged as a loyal ally of the - now voted out - President Donald Trump.
Days after the start of the unusual onset of winter in Texas, it became clear on Thursday that the power grid in the state narrowly missed a catastrophic complete collapse.
The head of the electricity network operator Ercot, Bill Magness, said it was a matter of "seconds and minutes", which is why the network had to be relieved quickly by controlled interruptions in the power supply.
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The “extreme weather events” that the USA experienced this week in the middle, in the south and on Thursday in the east of the country had shown once again that “climate change is real and is happening now, and that we are not adequately prepared for it are, "said US President Joe Biden's homeland security advisor, Liz Sherwood-Randall, at a press conference on Thursday.
The power grids - especially in Texas - are not up to the requirements, and the infrastructure is not designed to withstand such extreme conditions.
«We know that we cannot simply react to extreme weather events;
we have to expect them and be prepared for them, ”Sherwood-Randall said.
The winter weather in the USA also has an impact on neighboring Mexico.
After bottlenecks in the natural gas supply, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador called on Thursday to save energy.
All Mexicans should avoid consuming energy that is not absolutely necessary at rush hour between 6 and 11 p.m.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210219-99-505910 / 2
Tweet from the Democrats in Texas
Austin tap water notice
Kyle City Notice on Winter Weather
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Radio interview Cruz Tuesday
Poweroutage.us
Tweet with video Telemundo Cruz