Frozen Ceiling Fan Photo Shows Brutal Reality Of American Cold Snap

There’s cold, and then there’s icicles-hanging-from-a-ceiling-fan cold, which is exactly the temperature some unfortunate Texas residents are currently experiencing. 

A number of cities across the US have experienced record-low temperatures as a winter storm hit the country this week, resulting in school closures, power cuts and travel cancellations.

Texas is one of the worst-affected states, in part due to the fact such cold weather is so rare. Temperatures in central and southern areas of the state are usually between 20°C (68°F) and 24°C (75°F) in February, but yesterday they dropped to -22°C (-7.6°F).

Such freezing weather can be hard to comprehend, so Texas resident Thomas Black took to Twitter to help give a visual representation of the conditions.

The image, seemingly taken from the hallway of his apartment building in uptown Dallas, showed a ceiling fan with huge icicles hanging from the blades. Along each side of the corridor, more ice could be seen lining the walls.

Alongside the photo, Black wrote, ‘This is how cold it is at my Apartment. As a Texan, yes, I’m certainly not built for this. I don’t even care.’

The image is one of a number of updates Black has been sharing as the cold weather progressed in Texas, with one thread detailing the increasing amount of ice taking over the pool in his apartment block.

On February 15, he wrote, ‘Yes, we arent used to super cold temperatures. But I’ve never seen my pool starting to freeze.’

The following day, he shared an update as he went out to the pool and stomped on the ice, writing, ‘The frozen part of my pool is now solid enough to stand on.’

The unprecedented situation continued late last night, when Black shared a video of the snow falling outside his apartment building and wrote, ‘Theres a constant alarm going off right now. Idk what it means [sic].’

In the wake of the storm, President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency in Texas and ordered federal assistance to supplement state and local response efforts.

More than 4.3 million people in the state have been left without power as the high demand for electricity caused the power grid to fail, and indoor temperatures quickly dropped when heat systems in homes began to fail due to a lack of insulation on the buildings.

After the image of the frozen ceiling fan garnered attention from thousands of Twitter users, Black announced that he would be organising local community recovery efforts for the coming weeks and encouraged those who wanted to get involved to send him a direct message.