Texas Death Toll Rising Even As Temperatures Rise, Too. Vermont Totally Escapes This. For Now.

A thaw will finally start today in Texas and accelerate
through the weekend. However, the death toll from 
the freeze is rising and will continue to do so. 

After an extreme week, the weather across the nation is gradually turning blessedly boring.  

The South will begin to thaw out this weekend, and virtually all the United States is going to avoid any big storms for the next few days. 

The aftermath, though, will take a long time to recover from. 

The death toll, as tragically expected, is rising.  At last count, the Washington Post was reporting 47 dead in Texas. Along the Texas coast, in Galveston County alone, eight people have already been confirmed or are suspected to have died from exposure. 

In Abilene, three people died, including one man who was found frozen to death in his recliner inside a heatless home. 

I'm sure more casualties will turn up as the ice melts and people can get out and do assessments. 

Dangers will lurk for days. Power is still out for hundreds of thousands of Texas.  Another 70,000 or so were without power up in Oregon, which was hit by a devastating ice storm several days ago.

Broken water pipes are flooding countless homes, apartments and businesses across Texas and surrounding areas. This situation will only get worse as frozen pipes thaw over the next few days. 

Authorities such as the National Weather Service in Dallas/Fort Worth are warning of additional dangers. Thawing ice will re-freeze in some areas at night, making things dangerous on the roads, still. During the thaw, chunks of falling ice from skyscrapers, overhangs, towers and roofs pose a danger to anyone standing nearby. 

Frozen ponds will tempt people to venture onto the ice. But that ice is thin and getting thinner, so people could fall in. 

Residents of big cities like Houston, San Antonio and Austin are under boil water orders because low water pressure from all the broken pipes has potentially contaminated drinking water. 

The East Coast still has some lingering light snow, sleet and freezing drizzle today, which is making life a bit difficult, but that should be departing, too.

Up here in Vermont, we pretty much entirely escaped all this havoc. In this instance, we're one of the few lucky ones. 

Oh sure, there was a mid-sized storm on Tuesday, and temperatures for the past 10 days or so have been running slightly cooler than normal. A little more snow is due today and tomorrow, but it's only one to three inches for most of us. 

The extreme weather is unsettling for us here, though. First of all, we feel terrible for all the people victimized by the storms.  We also have to wonder when it will be our turn again. 

As climate change continues, the upward trend in severe weather events will continue. Lord knows we in Vermont have seen that. 

We escaped this episode.  When will be the next time we Vermonters aren't so lucky? There will be a next time.