AUSTIN At the height of the storm that blasted Texas, Maria Benitez huddled in her Austin apartment with her husband and four teenage children, eating tuna out of a can and sipping on powdered milk. With no power, her apartment was dangerously cold and the family pulled on several pairs of pants and sweaters to keep warm.
Benitez s power and water returned Thursday, just as her fridge and cupboards grew bare
. But now a new struggle begins: The storm kept her from cleaning homes all week and, as her family s sole wage earner, she s instantly behind on rent and utilities. Grocery donations from friends have helped. But those will run out soon.
Texas winter storm could make life worse for Black and Latino families hit hard by power outages N dea Yancey-Bragg and Rick Jervis, USA TODAY
Texas mom describes three days without power with three kids, two dogs, husband
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AUSTIN At the height of the storm that blasted Texas, Maria Benitez huddled in her Austin apartment with her husband and four teenage children, eating tuna out of a can and sipping on powdered milk. With no power, her apartment was dangerously cold and the family pulled on several pairs of pants and sweaters to keep warm.
Benitez s power and water returned Thursday, just as her fridge and cupboards grew bare
Texas winter storm could make life worse for Black and Latino families hit hard by power outages msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
David Chapel s Pastor Joseph C. Parker Jr. (Photo by John Anderson)
David Chapel Missionary Baptist Church was born, phoenixlike, out of the darkness of Austin s racial history. The congregation originated in 1924, when members of a community then south of Austin, concerned about boys playing marbles on Sundays, established a church in a former blacksmith shop. They ve moved two times since: once in 1926 to the corner of 14th and Chestnut streets in East Austin, and again, as the church grew, to its current site at MLK and Chestnut in 1958.
With the second move, the church wanted to build a new sanctuary to accommodate its growing congregation, but white-owned banks refused to lend the money. Instead, David Chapel solicited funding from the St. John Regular Baptist Association (a coalition of churches in East Austin, still in existence) and hired John S. Chase – the first Black graduate of the UT-Austin School of Architecture – to design the sanctuary and Ol