Even as the four state region of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas comes out of the Extreme Cold Warning issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) on this Tuesday, January 27, 2026 [which expired at 12:00 PM CST], the challenges are far from over. Winter Storm Fern brought freezing rain, sleet, snow and ice followed immediately by brutally cold temperatures.
Closures
Caddo and Bossier Parish schools are closed for a second day. Announcements on Wednesday are expected by this Tuesday afternoon. LSU Shreveport also closed for a second day. So too are city of Shreveport offices.
On Monday afternoon, Mayor Tom Arceneaux held another winter storm briefing on the city’s Facebook page & YouTube channel, with the mayor echoing some of the same messages from his Sunday briefing about the treacherous road conditions. “The most important message that we can get out in this delivery is please do not get out. This is not a time to get out and sightsee. The roads are still very, very dangerous. If you don’t have a four-wheel drive vehicle and even if you do, the roads are going to be very, very slick. We’re not able to get to all of them. Our priorities are keeping the roads that are adjacent to hospitals and dialysis centers, to keep those clear.”
Arceneaux added that Sportran is “on-demand only” bus service for Tuesday, as well.
Power Outages
And even by late Tuesday morning, more than 105,000 power outages remained across much of North Louisiana, except for Caddo, Bossier, Webster, and Claiborne Parishes. That’s according to PowerOutage.com. Entergy had the highest number of overall outages across both Louisiana and Mississippi, with more than 130,000 customers without power. That’s followed by SWEPCO, with nearly 19,000, and CLECO with just under 2,500. The exact outage counts are constantly changing as repairs are made to downed power lines by all the crews out in the field working for the various utility companies. Michael Corbin with SWEPCO says crews are working around the clock to get power restored. “We feel like we’ll have this all wrapped up by Wednesday evening, if not sooner.”
Texas Power Grid
In Texas, where a deadly blackout came about during three severe winter storms in February 2021, officials say the revamped power grid is performing better this time. As The Texas Newsroom reports, Texas’ power grid has so far held up after Winter Storm Fern.
The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), manages most of the state’s grid and says electricity supply has remained stable, even as demand has risen sharply during the cold snap. So far, most outages reported so far have been localized. As a precaution, the U.S. Department of Energy issued an emergency order last week allowing ERCOT to tap backup power sources, including generators at large facilities.
The move comes nearly five years after the February 2021 winter storm, when widespread grid failures left more than four million Texans without power and contributed to hundreds of deaths.
While icy conditions remained by this Tuesday morning, temperatures are expected to warm up in the coming days.
