LEFT TO FREEZE

Officials: Texans Are Dying of Hypothermia Inside Their Homes

Indoor hypothermia deaths are very rare—but freezing weather combined with rolling power blackouts in Texas this week have been deadly and the numbers are rising.

Several people in Texas have died of hypothermia after prolonged exposure to freezing temperatures inside their homes, officials say. According to the Houston Chronicle, the total number of people believed to have died from weather-related incidents in South Texas stands at at least 25, and some of those deaths have been blamed on indoor hypothermia. “The weather is not just cold, it’s deadly,” said Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez. Indoor hypothermia deaths are very rare, and underscore how unforgiving the conditions have been in the Lone Star State. Temperatures were expected to drop into the 20s overnight Thursday, according to the Chronicle, and hundreds of thousands of people are still without power after four days, and as many as 13 million are on orders to boil their tap water. On top of the hypothermia deaths, officials are reporting more and more people dying of carbon-monoxide exposure as they turn to gas generators for power. A Galveston County judge has called for a district attorney’s office to open an investigation into the true total number of deaths caused by the severe weather