AUSTIN, TX (AP) — Thousands of frustrated Texans shivered in their homes without power for a second day Thursday, most of them in booming Austin, and fading hopes for a quick fix have awakened grim memories of a deadly power outage in 2021 following a freezing winter storm. south of the usa

Freezing temperatures have caused at least 10 deaths on slippery roads this week in Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma. And even as Texas finally began to thaw on Thursday, a new Arctic front from Canada was heading north in the US and threatening New England with potentially the coldest weather in decades. Cold winds can drop below minus 50 (minus 45 Celsius).

In Austin, the city has compared damage from fallen trees and icy power lines to tornadoes as they come under increasing criticism for slow repairs and a delay in restoring power.

“We were hoping to make more progress today,” said Jackie Sargent, general manager of Austin Energy. “And it just didn’t happen.”

Across Texas, more than 280,000 customers were left without power on Thursday night, up from 430,000 earlier in the day, according to PowerOutage.us. The outages were most common in Austin, where impatience grew among 150,000 customers almost two days after the first power outage, which for many also means no heat. Power outages have affected about 30% of customers in the city of nearly a million people at any given time since Wednesday.

By Thursday evening, Austin officials had retracted initial estimates that power would be fully restored by Friday evening, saying the extent of the damage was worse than originally thought and that they could no longer predict when the lights would come back on.

Allison Rizzolo, who lost power in Austin, told KEYE-TV that she would like the city to be more clear on what to do or what to expect.

“I understand there is a fine line between preparedness and panic, but I would like them to be more aggressive in their communications,” Rizzolo said.

For many Texans, it was the second time in three years that a February freeze — temperatures were near 30 degrees on Thursday and winds below freezing — caused extended power outages and uncertainty about when the lights would come back on.

Unlike the 2021 Texas power outages, in which hundreds of people died after the state’s power grid was brought to the brink of total failure due to a lack of generation, Austin’s power outages this time were mostly the result of freezing equipment and icy conditions. trees and falling limbs on power lines. But those differences were of little comfort to Austin residents and businesses, which also lost power for days two years ago.

Among those still without power on Thursday was the Texas Central Food Bank, Travis County Judge Andy Brown, the county’s top elected official, said.

“They have 21 counties to serve. They haven’t been working for at least three days. They have a big need,” Brown said.

School systems in the Dallas and Austin area, as well as many in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Memphis, Tennessee, closed on Thursday due to continued snow, sleet and freezing rain. Schools in Austin won’t open until next week.

Hundreds more flights were canceled again in Texas, although not as many as in previous days.

Airport crews fought the ice to keep the runways open. By Thursday morning, airlines had canceled more than 500 flights at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport—more than a quarter of all flights scheduled for that day. However, according to FlightAware.com, that’s down from about 1,300 cancellations on Wednesday and more than 1,000 on Tuesday.

Dozens more flights were canceled at Dallas Love Field International Airport and Austin-Bergstrom.

Another wave of cold weather in the US is on the horizon as the Arctic cold front is expected to move from Canada to the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest and move northeast by Friday.

In a briefing Thursday with the Federal Weather Forecasting Center, New Englanders warned that chills — the combined effect of wind and cold air on exposed skin — in minus 50s “may be the coldest sensation in decades.”

Strong winds and cold air will bring cold winds “rare in northern and eastern Maine,” the National Weather Service in Caribou, Maine, said in a statement.

Jay Broccolo, director of weather operations at New Hampshire’s Mount Washington Observatory, which has held the world gust speed record for decades, said Thursday winds could reach 100 mph (160 km/h).

“We take safety at the higher peaks very seriously,” Broccolo said, “and the forecast for this weekend looks pretty bleak even by our standards.”