2011 Groundhog Day Blizzard, North America

In Ciudad Juárez, which lies just across the border from El Paso, Texas, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, a regional state of emergency was declared Tuesday evening, just ahead of the cold weather system, with Mexican authorities urging citizens to stay indoors. Despite the snow and ice that developed across the borderland, the major International Bridges remained open during the blizzard. Additionally, to help ease the electricity crash across Texas due to the freezing weather, Mexican officials arranged for the transfer of 280 megawatts of power to the United States via utility hookups located in Nuevo Laredo (across from Laredo, Texas) and Piedras Negras, Coahuila (near Eagle Pass, Texas).
On Wednesday, authorities in Juarez announced that convoys would be traveling out to remote regions and slum areas to ensure that citizens are warm and have the supplies they need to get through the next few days. On Thursday, Mexican officials suspended energy exports to Texas, citing cold weather damage at power stations across Mexico that resulted in a total loss of 1,000 megawatts of electricity in Northern Mexico. Power stations in Mexico were able to meet the resulting energy demands in Northern Mexico, but could not spare additional electricity to aid Texas. In Juarez, overnight temperatures in the single digits left 90% of the city without water service due to frozen pipes, and the failure of thermoelectric generators at a power station in Samalayuca, 30 miles south of Juarez, left citizens without power for roughly 5 hours. Presently, no fatalities have been reported as a result of the storm.