{"id":134723,"date":"2026-01-23T06:07:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T06:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/134723\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T06:07:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T06:07:21","slug":"south-plains-included-in-abbott-disaster-declaration-ahead-of-winter-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/134723\/","title":{"rendered":"South Plains included in Abbott disaster declaration ahead of winter storm"},"content":{"rendered":"

AUSTIN, Texas (KCBD) – AUSTIN, TX (KCBD) – Gov. Greg Abbott declared a disaster for 134 Texas counties Thursday<\/a> as the state prepares for severe winter weather expected to impact large portions of Texas this weekend.<\/p>\n

Abbott\u2019s main message was to take the storm seriously. Nearly a dozen state agencies have been preparing for the weather event for the past couple days.<\/p>\n

TxDOT crews are already putting salt and brine on highways. The National Guard is on standby for rescues, and the state\u2019s energy grid is ready for the extra demand.<\/p>\n

Abbott announced the declaration following a briefing with state officials at the State Operations Center in Austin. The declaration ensures necessary resources are available to affected communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever we go through any type of disaster, job number one is always protecting lives,\u201d Abbott said. \u201cBecause of the severity of this storm, right now I am making a disaster declaration covering 134 counties across the state of Texas to make sure that every possible resource can be made available to those communities so the state can respond quicker, faster, and better than ever before.\u201d<\/p>\n

South Plains counties included<\/p>\n

The disaster declaration includes multiple counties across the South Plains region, including Bailey, Castro, Cochran, Crosby, Dawson, Floyd, Gaines, Garza, Hale, Hockley, Lamb, Lubbock, Lynn, Martin, Parmer, Swisher, Terry and Yoakum counties.<\/p>\n

Emergency response escalated<\/p>\n

Abbott directed the Texas Division of Emergency Management to increase the readiness level of the Texas State Operations Center to Level II (Escalated Response). Earlier this week, the governor directed TDEM to activate state emergency response resources in anticipation of severe winter weather.<\/p>\n

Waiver for truck drivers<\/p>\n

The Texas Department of Public Safety issued a waiver allowing commercial truck drivers transporting goods like propane, groceries and other essential products to operate outside maximum driving hour requirements. The five-day waiver helps ensure delivery and availability of critical resources during the weather event. Drivers remain subject to all other commercial vehicle laws and regulations.<\/p>\n

Grid and safety preparations<\/p>\n

Abbott emphasized road safety, encouraging Texans to remain off roads unless absolutely necessary. The governor noted the additional natural gas capabilities of the state\u2019s electrical grid, saying the ERCOT grid has never been stronger or more prepared and is fully capable of handling the winter storm.<\/p>\n

Abbott called on Texans to gather resources and provisions needed to prepare for below freezing temperatures, snow, rain and sleet through the next few days.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have an outstanding team that is already prepared, already responding, to make sure that, even though we\u2019re going to go through a harsh winter storm, we\u2019re going to make it through this process,\u201d Abbott said.<\/p>\n

Texans can visit the TDEM Disaster Portal<\/a> for winter weather information, find winter weather safety tips at TexasReady.gov<\/a> locate warming centers at tdem.texas.gov\/warm<\/a> and check road conditions at DriveTexas.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas (KCBD) – AUSTIN, TX (KCBD) – Gov. Greg Abbott declared a disaster for 134 Texas counties…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3258,132,134,133,5055,57523,1829,57524,17853,319,12316,12326,27,172,12396],"class_list":["post-134723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-abbott","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-governor","tag-greg","tag-ice","tag-icy","tag-impact","tag-kcbd","tag-severe","tag-snow","tag-texas","tag-weather","tag-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}