While we still had freezing temperatures to wake up to this morning, we have turned the corner in terms of this week’s extreme winter weather, and things are slowly returning to normal.
Schools are open this morning. METRO in the city will be running normally, too. But, Danny Perez at TxDOT told us there may be a couple of rough spots as well.
“There could be some patches of ice out there; some residual moisture out there,” Perez said.
Keeping it in the city, Council Member Michael Kubosh says its resources are fine, but there is the reality that we just don’t get this weather often.
“This city is not prepared for this type of an ice storm. Northern cities are,” Kubosh explained.
So does he think it's a good idea to invest in salt like those other cities?
“To invest in the type of equipment we would need, it would be a great economic burden on the city,” Kubosh explained.
And that's because we last saw this kind of weather in 1997 according to Jeff Lindner with the Harris County Flood Control District.
“That produced a lot more ice. We had a lot of power outages and trees down. We didn’t see that with this event,” Lindner told KTRH News.
Impact on schools and local business
Schools across the area were out for the last three days, the last two because of the storm. Nicole Ray at Cy-Fair ISD told KTRH they had a decision to make about a makeup day.
“We already had February 19th set aside as a student holiday, so it just made sense that we would use that as a makeup instructional day,” Ray said.
Ray added that the amount of time missed because of Harvey played into their decision.
“We were out for a significant amount of time. We already had concerns about making up that time prior to missing these last two days,” Ray explained, adding that every school district faces the same issue.
In terms of the impact on local business, Patrick Jankowski with the Greater Houston Partnership isn't sure it's a big one.
“This was more of an inconvenience. If you are white collar, you probably worked from home. If you’re blue collar, you might not have reported to the shop, but the orders are still on the books,” Jankowski said.
And with that being the case, the local economy won't take a hit.
“The impact on the broader economy is so small you can’t even measure it,” Jankowski stated.