Youngest daughter lives in Dallas and she's fine, however older daughter has a coworker in Austin and her power has been out since Tuesday.

We are in Austin and are lucky to not have lost power. Several people in our neighborhood still don't have any. The estimate this morning was still about 200k in Austin without power. Our son who lives here has not had power since Tuesday. Austin Energy is saying that they cannot give any estimate of restoring power due to the complexity of repairs. Many stop lights are not working, and that has created another danger. I got out yesterday, and the tree damage in our neighborhood is incomprehensible. The good news is that the temperature is warmer today.

oops, I posted this on the ice thread before seeing your more specfic thread....

Lars, one of my brothers lives in Leander just NW of Austin and it was pretty bad there, but amazingly he did not lose power. Trees are down all over his neighborhood and several branches fell on his roof and heat pump, so far he doesn't know if there was any roof damage but will inspect for leaks as things thaw out. Hope your sister retained her power and came thru ok.

Our niece in Austin (at least one of them) checked into a hotel a couple of days ago and is still there.

Latest news conference said 109k still without power. Hope your family members have theirs restored soon. Over 150 crews from Houston and San Antonio are here assisting.

Here's a message my niece posted on Facebook:

She still does not have power, and most of the hotels are full. The ones that take dogs filled up first.

Yes, it's a mess. Our lakehouse is in Travis County, as is Daughter's house. She's out of the country so not sure of her house, but our lakehouse has been up and down. It isn't a grid problem this time, but trees full of ice losing limbs, which are falling on power lines.

I was born in Texas. Texas is nothing like "I" remember. I'm so sorry to all those enduring this.

I had to look this up:

More than 430,000 homes and businesses were without power in Texas on Thursday as parts of the state continued to battle ice and winter weather.

I lived in Dallas in the 80s, and remember that Austin could get serious ice, but I don’t recall such power outages. We got some in Dallas, but Denton was worse.

My mother went to NTSU in Denton for a music degree and grew up with colder weather than I did. I lived through an ice storm in Austin in 1987 (I think), but power was not lost. I remember that almost everything was closed, but I had an appointment with a hairdresser from England at that time, and I kept the appointment because he was still open. There was absolutely no traffic on the streets, and so it wasn't all that dangerous, and I did not have to go far. He was the only hairdresser I could find who would cut my hair the way I wanted.

I do not remember ever seeing an ice cycle in person, but I always thought they were pretty in photos.

Lars, I went to NTSU for grad school and commuted from Dallas. Before I went there, I had a coworker from Denton who would sometimes call in to work in Dallas because it was too icy to drive in. We all thought she’d just been partying too late the night before.

Well, when I started driving there, I learned what she meant! The worst was one particular night. I usually carpooled with a fellow, and one night we were driving home in my car. It was really icy up there, I’m driving in second gear just to have some hint of control. I kept saying I was going to slide in to the motel along the highway and we would just have to stay over. And he said no, no, no, my wife won’t understand! Well, we made it across the causeway over Lake Lewisville, and sure enough, dry the rest of the way. I’m looking at the Google map right now, and yep, I-35E is closed, I’m sure for the ice.

According to this map, there are a lot of road closures in Dallas at the moment, but most are supposed to be reopened at 6 PM. It seems like that would shut down most of the city, and temps are supposed to be in the upper 50s right now.

I've lived in Houston, Dallas and Ft. Worth when the cities were effectively shut down for the weather. I don't remember being shut in the 3 years I was in Austin, but 2 of those years I walked to campus and the impact would have been much less. Icing is always worse because the roads are treacherous and we aren't equipped to deal with more than sanding certain overpasses or bridges -- and the trees and power lines can snap. I remember a couple of bad icings and power issues in DFW, but other than the grid failure, this is the largest cold weather impact I remember. My brother and SIL are on the north side -- near a hospital and fire station. They credit the location for the fact that they didn't lose power during the grid failure or this past week, but the two large trees in their yard are heavily damaged and may be lost. I know they are working on clean up today.

My younger son is headed to San Antonio Wednesday and my older son and his fiance are headed to Austin a week after he gets back. Reminded me of the person here who was asking about a wrap for a wedding in February. I hope the wedding wasn't impacted, power is back for everyone and I hope we are done with the freezing weather this year.

I remember a frost March 31, 1987 when I lived in Austin. I had planted some vegetables in my back yard, and they froze, plus there was frost on the sidewalk in the morning. I would ride my bike to campus when I lived there or take the Speedway bus - I lived on Duval Street between 45th and 43rd Streets, up the street from Mother's Cafe and across the street from Hyde Park Bar & Grill, which I went to often.

When I lived in Austin in 1973 (Jan-Aug), I lived on 24½ Street at Seton, and I would walk to work, which was the Main Library at UT, which was in the Tower Bldg.

I receive a notification from Oncor if my parents' power is out, but haven't received one during this storm, so I'm assuming that they haven't lost power.

Lars, I lived up on Shoal Creek my first year in Austin and then was just a block over from Duval on Tom Green from 87-89.

Just saw new post thaw photos of the tree in front of my brother's house. The one in back was worse and not sure they can save either. Between drought and the ice, this is a very tough year for trees in this state.