好英语网极寒天气中，死在卧室、汽车和后院里的得州人
SAN ANTONIO — Carrol Anderson spent much of his life in Southeast Texas, where the most feared natural disasters spin up from the Gulf of Mexico during the warm months of hurricane season. But last week, Mr. Anderson, a 75-year-old who breathed with the help of oxygen tanks, knew that a different kind of storm was heading his way.
圣安东尼奥——卡洛·安德森(Carrol Anderson)一生大部分时间生活在得克萨斯州东南部，最可怕的自然灾害是飓风季节那几个温热的月份里在墨西哥湾酝酿的。但是上周，现年75岁、靠氧气罐辅助呼吸的安德森知道，另一种风暴正在向他袭来。
To prepare, he ordered a fresh supply of oxygen that his stepdaughter said never arrived. There was a spare tank, however, in the pickup outside his one-story brick house in Crosby, Texas, just northeast of Houston.
为了做准备，他新订购了一批氧气，但他的继女说氧气始终没送到。不过，在休斯敦东北部克罗斯比的这座砖砌平房外，他在皮卡车里放了一个备用罐。
本周，致命的冬季风暴摧毁了得克萨斯州的电力和水源，奥斯汀市受到重创。
So when Mr. Anderson, an Army veteran who went by Andy, was found dead inside his truck on Tuesday, his stepdaughter figured he had gone outside to retrieve it. His main tank, back in the house, runs on electricity, and the power had gone out the night before as a deadly cold descended on much of Texas.
因此，当一名叫安迪的陆军退伍军人周二发现安德森死在卡车里时，他的继女猜测，他应该是为了走出去拿氧气罐。他的主要氧气罐在房子里，靠电力运行，而由于致命的寒冷天气降临，前一天晚上得州大部分地区已经停电。
While the final tally could be much higher, Mr. Anderson was among at least 58 people who died in storm-affected areas stretching to Ohio, victims of carbon monoxide poisoning, car crashes, drownings, house fires and hypothermia.
最终的死亡人数会比现在高得多，但在一直延伸至俄亥俄州的暴风影响区域里，目前至少已有58人因一氧化碳中毒、车祸、溺水、房屋火灾和低温而死亡，安德森是其中之一。
In Galveston County, along the Texas Gulf Coast, the authorities said two residents had died from exposure to the cold and one person from possible carbon monoxide poisoning. Four other deaths remained under investigation and were possibly linked to the frigid weather.
当局说，在得州墨西哥湾沿岸的加尔维斯顿县，有两名居民因暴露于寒冷而死亡，一名可能是一氧化碳中毒死亡。还有四人的死亡仍在调查中，可能与寒冷的天气有关。
Judge Mark Henry, the county’s top elected official, said he would have evacuated some of his most vulnerable residents in advance of the winter storm had he known that power outages would plunge the county into darkness for a few days. He said the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state’s power grid, had warned only of rolling blackouts. Instead, most residents were without power for at least 48 hours.
作为该县最高民选官员的法官马克·亨利(Mark Henry)说，假如他知道停电将使全县陷入黑暗数天，他就会在冬季风暴前撤离最弱势的居民。他说，管理该州电网的得州电力稳定性委员会(Electric Reliability Council of Texas)仅发出了轮流停电的警告。然而，大多数居民至少有48个小时没有通电。
“We would have been happy to order an evacuation if we’d been told Sunday the power was going to go out and stay out for four days,” he said, noting the county is more accustomed to ordering evacuations in advance of hurricanes.
他说：“如果我们在周日被告知要停电四天，我们会很乐意下令撤离，”他指出，该县已经习惯了在飓风来袭之前下令撤离。
A spokeswoman for ERCOT said on Friday that the surge in demand stressed the power grid, a crisis so dire that the “local utilities were not able to rotate the outages.”
一位委员会发言人上周五说，需求激增给电网带来了压力，危机之严峻导致“当地电厂无法轮流断电”。
At its height, about four million Texans were without power this week as temperatures plummeted to the teens and single digits. About 165,000 remained without electricity on Friday, though millions were still without running water or under notices to boil their tap water.
气温骤降至华氏十几度甚至几度（约合零下十几摄氏度——编注），上周在最高峰时大约有400万得州人失去电力。上周五，仍有约16.5万人没有通电，另外有数百万人没有自来水或被通知将自来水煮沸饮用。
Still, there were signs of relief. In hard-hit Austin, City Manager Spencer Cronk said on Friday that more than one million gallons of water would arrive over the next two days. The city plans to set up distribution centers, and Mr. Cronk said water would be delivered to the city’s most vulnerable citizens, such as older people and those without homes.
不过还是有缓解的迹象。在遭受重创的奥斯汀，城市经理斯宾塞·克朗克(Spencer Cronk)周五表示，未来两天将有超过一百万加仑的水运抵。该市计划建立配送中心，克朗克说，水将被输送给该市最弱势的民众，例如老年人和无家可归者。
Greg Meszaros, the director of Austin’s water utility, said he expected that most residents would have their water pressure restored over the weekend. Boil water advisories should be lifted sometime next week, he said.
奥斯汀的自来水公司负责人格雷格·梅萨罗斯(Greg Meszaros)说，他预计大多数居民都能在周末恢复水压。他说，煮沸自来水的建议应该会在下周某个时候被取消。
Coming into clearer view were the dimensions of a public health crisis exacerbated by poverty, desperation and, in some cases, a lack of understanding of cold-weather safety. Texas hospitals and health providers saw more than 700 visits related to carbon monoxide poisoning between Monday and Wednesday. Thayer Smith, division chief with the Austin Fire Department, said his city had seen dozens of incidents of toxic exposure from people burning charcoal in their homes.
人们逐渐看到，贫穷、绝望以及——某些情况下——对低温天气下的安全问题缺乏认识，正在导致一场何其严重的公共卫生危机。上周一至周三，得州医院和卫生服务机构接诊了700多个一氧化碳中毒病例。奥斯汀消防局部门负责人塞耶·史密斯(Thayer Smith)说，他所在的城市已经有数十起因在屋内燃烧木炭导致的中毒事件。
The weather also hampered the response to the coronavirus pandemic. The White House on Friday said six million doses of coronavirus vaccines had been held up because of snowstorms across the country, creating a backlog affecting every state and throwing off the pace of vaccination appointments over the next week.
天气也阻碍了对新冠病毒大流行的应对。白宫上周五表示，全国各地的暴风雪导致600万剂新冠病毒疫苗不能被使用，造成的积压影响着每个州，并减慢了下周的疫苗接种速度。
In Texas, hospitals spent the week grappling with burst pipes, power outages and acute water shortages, making it difficult to care for patients.
在得州，医院花了整整一周的时间应对管道破裂、断电和严重缺水的情况，造成病患照护上的困难。
In Abilene, authorities said a man died at a local medical facility after he was unable to get dialysis treatment at the site. Large amounts of filtered water, in addition to electricity and heat, are required to properly provide care for dialysis patients, and water at the facility was shut down, said Cande Flores, the Abilene fire chief.
当局说，在阿比林，一名男子因在当地医疗机构无法得到透析治疗而死亡。阿比林消防局局长坎德·弗洛雷斯(Cande Flores)说，除电和热外，还需要大量过滤水才能为透析患者提供适当的护理，然而该机构已经断水。
Chief Flores said that at least four people had died in Abilene as a result of the state power grid failure, including a homeless man who died from exposure to the cold, a 60-year-old man who was found dead in his home and an 86-year-old woman whose daughter found her frozen in her backyard.
弗洛雷斯说，阿比林至少有四人因州电网故障死亡，包括一名因暴露于寒冷而死亡的无家可归者，一名60岁男子被发现死于家中，还有一名86岁的女性被其女儿发现冻死在后院。
Elsewhere in the state, a 69-year-old man was found dead inside his home in a rural community south of San Antonio, where he lived alone. He did not have electricity, and the authorities said his bedroom was 35 degrees when they found him.
在得州其他地方，一名69岁的独居男子在圣安东尼奥南部一个农村社区的家中死亡。他没有电力，当局说他们发现他的时候，房间温度是华氏35度（约合2摄氏度）。
In Houston, an Ethiopian immigrant died in her idling car, which was parked in her garage, where she sat while charging her phone. She was talking to a friend when she started to feel tired.
在休斯敦，一名埃塞俄比亚移民在空转的汽车中死亡，当时她坐在停在车库的车中给手机充电。开始感到疲倦时，她还在跟朋友聊天。
“She tried to drink water,” said Negash Desta, a relative by marriage to Etenesh Mersha, who died. “After she told her friend she couldn’t talk anymore, there was no response after that.”
“她尝试喝水，”死者埃特内什·梅尔沙(Etenesh Mersha)亲家的亲戚内加什·德斯塔(Negash Desta)说。“她告诉朋友自己不能再说下去了，而后就没了音讯。”
The friend tried to call the police in Houston but did not have an address, Mr. Desta said. The friend turned to Facebook, where she found Mr. Desta. Hours later, he eventually received a message about what had happened and alerted the police. They found an entire family, poisoned.
那个朋友试着打电话给休斯顿警方，但没有她的地址，于是他上Facebook搜索，找到了德斯塔。几个小时之后，德斯塔终于看到了信息，知道出事了，然后报警。警察发现，全家人都中毒了。
“When they get in, they found the mother and daughter were just dead and the son and father alive. They had all fainted,” he said, adding that the car had still been running. The daughter, Rakeb Shalemu, was 7 years old.
“他们进去后，发现母女俩已经死了，儿子和父亲还活着。他们都已经昏迷，”他说道，还说汽车的发动机没有熄火。女儿拉克布·沙勒穆(Rakeb Shalemu)才7岁。
Ms. Mersha’s husband and 8-year-old son were hospitalized. Mr. Desta said that the husband has since been released and that the boy, Beimnet Shalemu, was still in the intensive critical unit.
梅尔沙的丈夫和8岁的儿子被送往医院救治。德斯塔说，丈夫已经出院，儿子贝姆内特·沙勒穆(Beimnet Shalemu)仍在重症监护室。
Near Houston in Conroe, Texas, an 11-year-old boy, Cristian Pineda, was found dead in his bed on Monday morning. His family had no power the night before, and the parents, the boy and his siblings had huddled together in one bedroom, Lt. James Kelemen of the Conroe Police Department said on Friday.
周一早上，在离休斯顿不远的康罗市，11岁的男孩克里斯蒂安·皮内达(Cristian Pineda)死在他的床上。上周五，康罗警察局的詹姆斯·克莱门(James Kelemen)警官表示，前一天晚上因为家里停电，父母、死去的男孩和家里的其他孩子挤在一间卧室里。
Like Mr. Anderson and Ms. Mersha and her family, Cristian was the focus of a hastily assembled GoFundMe page. It requested donations to cover the expenses of his burial in Honduras, where his family is from. It had raised more than $38,000 as of Friday afternoon.
与安德森、梅尔沙及其家人一样，克里斯蒂安也是一个草草创建起来的GoFundMe页面的焦点人物。该页面寻求捐款来支付将他送回家乡洪都拉斯安葬的费用。截至上周五下午已筹集了逾3.8万美元。
The page showed a picture of a boy in a thin red hoodie, smiling and standing in the snow.
页面上有一张克里斯蒂安的照片，他穿着一件薄薄的红色帽衫，站在雪地里，面带微笑。
On Tuesday, while Mr. Anderson’s wife was mopping up their living room after a frozen pipe burst, he walked to the garage to try to get a generator going, hoping he could help clean up with a Shop-Vac.
上周二，安德森的妻子在清理水管冻裂后的客厅，他自己则去了车库，想启动发电机，指望用吸尘器帮忙清理。
His wife would not know until later that he had walked to his truck in search of oxygen, said his stepdaughter, Brandi Campanile. It was 19 degrees. His spare oxygen tank, it would turn out, was empty.
继女布兰迪·坎帕尼莱(Brandi Campanile)说，他的妻子直到后来才知道他到卡车上找氧气。当时是华氏19度（约合零下7摄氏度）。结果，他的备用氧气罐是空的。
“He was trying to get oxygen and it was just a losing battle,” Ms. Campanile said on Friday. “Texas is not meant to handle freezing temperatures. It’s not something that happens out here.”
“他试图吸氧，但已经没有用了，”坎帕尼莱上周五说。“得州不知道怎么对付这样的低温。这里从来没这样过。”