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This week’s freezing temperatures and winter storms in Texas led to far fewer power outages than a similar freeze last year. But worryingly, a handful of Texas counties with high rates of power outages also have high numbers of people who need power for medical devices, according to a new analysis by the data group CrisisReady.
Losing electricity in bitter cold is always dangerous, but it’s particularly scary for people who rely on it to keep medical devices like ventilators running. The new analysis pulled federal data on Medicare beneficiaries to identify counties with high numbers of people using electricity-dependent medical equipment. It found that six such counties had more than 1 percent of the population out of power at one…
