Texas Massively Undercounted 2021 Freeze Deaths, Analysis Finds


Joe Carroll
Fri, February 18, 2022, 8:53 AM·1 min read

(Bloomberg) -- The death toll from Texas’s historic February 2021 freeze may have been four times higher than the state’s official count, according to a new analysis by the Houston Chronicle.

The Lone Star state tallied more than 1,000 deaths during the week-long storm that couldn’t be explained by Covid-19 or historical patterns, the newspaper found. That compares with the state health department’s official count of 246 deaths directly and indirectly attributable to the storm.

The Arctic weather system that swept across Texas a year ago this week disrupted heat, power and water to millions of homes, and paralyzed transport and emergency services for days. The performance of government officials and agencies before, during and in the aftermath of the disaster has become a key electoral issue.

“It’s clear something is going on there,” Dr. Bob Anderson, chief of mortality for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Chronicle. “That’s a pretty big jump in February that seems to correlate with the blackout. It’s theoretically possible that something else could be driving that, but it seems pretty compelling.”