Without heat or water, SU students in Texas are still taking remote classes

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Tereyna Ancira’s family home lost power around 3 a.m. Monday morning.

Ancira, a Syracuse University junior majoring in English and textual studies, is taking classes remotely in Houston. Her family home lost power after the state initiated rolling blackouts to conserve energy and prevent Texas’ power grid from failing.

The state told Ancira and her family they’d be without power for 45 minutes to an hour, which later turned into an entire day.

“We were in our living room under comforters, and we could see our breath with a lantern as our light source,” Ancira said of the difficult conditions her family faced Monday evening. “We closed room doors, covered up drafty windows and went to sleep for the night.”

Ancira couldn’t attend class Monday, but SU students studying remotely in Texas said classes were the least of their concerns after a historic drop in temperature last week left millions of Texans without power, heat or clean water.

Without heat, sophomore Lillian Zhao had to wear three layers of clothing just to keep warm inside her own home in Houston. Her family was without power from Tuesday until Wednesday night.

“When we didn’t have power, that was the number one thing — I just wanted to be warm,” Zhao said. “School was probably the last thing people would be worried about.”

Zhao, who studies architecture and has been taking classes remotely from home, took her Zoom classes on her phone Tuesday. If not for a backup generator the family borrowed from a nearby friend, Zhao wouldn’t have been able to take her classes at all.

Her professors were understanding and allowed her to complete her assignments at her own pace, she said. Although Zhao’s power has returned, she’s still without running water or a working bathroom as of Sunday night.

Texas doesn’t have the infrastructure to handle extreme cold or even a few inches of snow, and streets are often left unplowed and unsalted, students said.

“In the 21 years that I’ve lived in Texas, it’s snowed twice and didn’t even stick to the ground,” said Susie Teuscher, a junior marketing and advertising major who lives near Houston. “I just didn’t think anything of it, and neither did any of my family.”

Few people were prepared for the below-zero wind chills that spread across the state last week, students said.

“On Tuesday, it was 18 degrees here, and Syracuse was 36,” Zhao said. “I thought that was pretty ridiculous.”

When Arjun Menon heard about the snowfall earlier in the week, he began monitoring the temperatures for his hometown of Frisco, which is about 30 minutes north of Dallas. Menon, a sophomore broadcast and digital journalism major, currently lives on campus, but his parents are back home.

When Menon saw that the temperature had dropped to single digits, he knew the situation was worse than anything he’s seen in Texas before.

“Watching it from a distance has just been crazy because this is something that I’ve never lived through,” Menon said. “The last time it snowed like this, I got school canceled for three or four days, but never power outages or people dying of the cold.”

At least 27 deaths in Texas have been attributed to the severe weather, according to CBS. Some Texans died from carbon monoxide poisoning as they used gas stoves or their cars to try to stay warm.

Menon’s parents only had electricity for about an hour one day and eventually decided to drive to the home of a friend in Dallas who hadn’t lost power.

The severity of the conditions varied across the state, Teuscher said.

She lives in The Woodlands, just outside of Houston. But when the snow hit, she was spending the weekend at her boyfriend’s house in Lubbock, eight hours from her home. She’s currently still stuck there.

While the Wi-Fi cut out at times, her boyfriend’s home never lost power, and Teuscher was able to connect to her cell phone hotspot to take virtual classes.

But the situation for her family, which was just eight hours away in the Houston area, was drastically different. They have no running water and have been drinking from plastic bottles, she said.

Teuscher’s biggest concern is not knowing when she’ll be able to go home. Right now, she plans on leaving Lubbock on Monday, but it’s possible that the roads will still be icy.

Students said the snow began around Sunday night. By early Monday many homes had already lost power. Courtesy of Susie Teuscher 

Kelly Chan, a freshman architecture major who’s currently in Austin, had difficulty buying supplies to complete her assignments because of the dangerous conditions.

Chan left her house Wednesday out of desperation for supplies, but doing so turned into an hours-long excursion. She drove to three separate stores, only to find them all closed, then got stuck going up her driveway.

“I just have to ration my supplies better when building my models since I have leftovers from last semester, but it was quite stressful not being sure if I was going to be able to complete my assignment,” Chan said.

Zhao drove by a grocery store Wednesday and saw that the line stretched out the door and around the block. When her mom went to the store earlier in the week, the power was off, and people were using their phone flashlights to see.

Her biggest concern is not knowing when the water will turn back on.

“It’s been hard. It’s definitely been really uncomfortable and really inconvenient, but at the same time, I’m aware that I have a lot of resources,” Zhao said. “A lot of people have it way worse.”

Menon was grateful that his parents had a place to go to stay warm, but he worried about people who didn’t have that option.

He’s seen his local city government tweeting updates and offering resources, such as warming centers, to people. Some places of worship have also opened their doors to people to stay warm, and organizations such as Austin Mutual Aid are collecting donations and providing rides to warming centers.

But on the state level, Menon said his government hasn’t been much help.

“The government is failing (the people of Texas) right now,” Menon said. “Nobody deserves that, no matter who you voted for.”

The lack of guidance and communication from the government has been the worst part of the situation, Teuscher said. Authorities haven’t said much, she said.

Students are hopeful that, as temperatures rise, conditions will return to normal.

“The worst is behind us, which is good,” Menon said.