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Houston under 'Hard Freeze Warning' as many begin to cleanup

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Published  February 18, 2021 10:52pm CST
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FOX 26 Houston

Another freezing night could lead to more pipes bursting

With another freezing night on the way across the Houston area, more pipes could burst. FOX 26 Report Matthew Seedorff has more.

HOUSTON - After a week of destructive weather across Texas, Houston is preparing for another deep freeze.

Forecasters are calling for temperatures in the 20’s Friday morning throughout the Houston area.

Friday morning weather forecast

Here comes another bitterly cold night. A Freeze Warning is posted for much of SE Texas and Houston from midnight until 9am Friday. Lows will drop into the 20s again, but the afternoon will warm into the 40s. It will possibly freeze again early Saturday, but then temps will slowly begin to warm. Sunday will finally have highs in the 60s. It can’t happen fast enough.

Houston Public Works employees have been busy this week fixing broken pipes. Several pipes have broken across the city as a result of extremely cold temperatures.

"It’s just really busy out here," said a HPW worker. "[There are] busted pipes from the house. Some from the yard. Some from the street."

More than a million people in Houston were without power for several days. On Thursday, most Texans had their lights flip back on. As temperature have heated up, more and more pipes have broken.

"Everything has fallen around me," said Shawn Thierry. "This isn’t snow, it’s insulation. It looks like a rainforest. Water was coming down everywhere."

Thierry is a Texas representative for House District 146. The lawmaker shared video Thursday of her home flooding with water. According to Thierry, she had been at a hotel seeking shelter with her 8-year-old. When she returned, several pipes in her home had broken.

"My power was off for four days," said Thierry. "When the power suddenly came back on, they heated up the pipes, they didn’t thaw naturally, and they burst. The issue is none of us expected power to be out this many days."

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According to Thierry, she plans to take her own personal experience to the Texas Capitol.

"I’m just representing all of the other people this happened to," said Thierry. "I’m already drafting legislation to make sure something like this doesn’t happen again."