Quietly, the Texas state government revised the number of people it says were killed as a result of a February winter storm that left much of the state without power due to problems with the state’s power grid, nearly doubling the number of dead, the Associated Press reports.
Texas now claims 111 people died as a result of the storm, up from the 57 people state officials previously claimed. The majority of deaths were from hypothermia caused by more than four million people going without power when the state’s isolated power grid failed.
The number may still be an undercount, as officials try to reconcile deaths that happened at that time with the power situations and weather conditions in the region. For example, people who died of heart attacks from shoveling snow or who died of problems related to not being able to get medications are not necessary in this count.
While wealthy Texans, like Republican US Senator Rafael “Ted” Cruz and his family were able to flee the blackout to go to a Ritz Carlton resort in Cancun–leaving their dog behind–most Texans has no such luxury. They dealt not only with power outages, but later with “boil water” warnings as utilities struggled to recovery after days without services.