TORONTO -- As Texas remains in a frigid chill after an unprecedented snowstorm, Canadian expats are among those who are embracing the winter weather.
The icy disaster has been a crisis for millions of Americans and even deadly for some, while many people in the southern U.S. state don’t have the basic tools to clear the snow from their homes.
But even as millions suffer without electricity and hot water, some Canadians are making the most of the sub-zero weather.
“It feels like home, and quite honestly I love it,” Lise Curry, a retired Canadian living in Dallas, told CTVNews.ca on Wednesday via telephone.
Curry moved to Dallas two years ago from Montreal with her family. She says she has never seen anything remotely like this in Dallas, but she is doing what she can to embrace the weather.
After the first wave of snow fell, she says that there was enough on her street to try cross-country skiing.
“Never did I think I would use my skis down here, but I went about eight miles. Quite a few cars stopped and gave me some funny looks,” said Curry.
She says her family is fortunate enough to still have power, although not everybody was as lucky. Rolling blackouts have become extended power outages for some cities in north Texas.
Kyla Manton lives in Fort Worth, a city in north-central Texas. She and her family have experienced frozen pipes in their bathroom and have been periodically without power for days.
She says that although she had days to prepare for the winter blast, but she never thought the weather would have turned out the way it did. The Burlington, Ont. native told CTVNews.ca she has never seen anything like it in her four years of living in Fort Worth.
“I did not think we were going to get a storm the way we did. To get snow and sleet and ice, it was just kind of surreal,” she said Wednesday in a telephone interview.
She says despite living in Ontario for 20 years, she has never experienced frozen pipes and periodic blackouts – no matter how big the storm was. Her husband who commutes to work says his routine felt “completely normal” when driving to work in the snow.
“I can count on one hand how many days we’ve had below freezing. It’s only usually in February and then by March, it’s hot again,” said Manton.
For others, what was supposed to be 10 minutes in the dark has become an extended period without electricity.
Rhonda Kadatz-Evans lives in Lantana, a suburb northwest of Dallas. She and her family have also been experiencing rolling blackouts since Sunday evening, and her neighbours are also under a water boil advisory.
“We’re not equipped for this weather. We don’t have winter tires and our roads are a mess. We’re not dressed for the weather because we don’t have gloves - it’s just ridiculous,” she said Wednesday in a telephone interview with CTVNews.ca.
Despite the poor weather, Evans is still checking in on her neighbours who aren’t as fortunate to have a warm home. She has offered showers, extra blankets and a warm cooked meal – a trait that she considers uniquely Canadian.
