How many people died from the 2021 winter storm in Texas? Researchers say the state's death toll is a severe undercount. The true toll may never be known.
Minal Shah flips through a photo album and lands on a portrait of her parents, Lalji and Manjula Shah, at their home in Austin. Manjula died from hypothermia during the 2021 blackout; her husband died shortly after.The tall, broad canopy provided shade for the sisters' garden below, a garden with sunflowers and tulsi and lemongrass. It's a garden their mother, Manjula, preened and pruned and nurtured for nearly two decades. It still flourishes, despite the best efforts of the Texas sun.
The sisters and their brother Tushar, who lives across the street in Austin, discovered the tree had collapsed when they got home from the hospital that February. The oasis they'd created — a world within a world where the three siblings cooked and shared meals every day — was gone forever.