Infrastructure

Millions of people in Texas are facing water shortages as the unprecedented cold front caused pipes to burst and water pressure to fall. Those who have running water are advised to boil their tap water before consumption for safety.

Texan hospitals have seen an increase in patients, especially in their emergency rooms, while facing short water supply and some are forced to transfer patients to other facilities.

A segment of Highway 1, California's major north-south state highway, has collapsed into the ocean after heavy rains caused a debris flow from the hillside above the road. The debris overwhelmed "drainage infrastructure, flowed across the highway, and eroded the road resulting in the complete loss of a segment of Highway 1" near Big Sur. No one was injured.

Outage in Romania led to underfrequency in Europe. According to Austrian Power Grid, normal operation was restored after one hour.

According to Austrian Power Grid (APG), a disturbance occurred in the synchronized European high-voltage power grid Friday afternoon, which led to an under frequency in Europe with a short-term frequency deviation of about 260 mHz. The detailed analysis is still in progress.

Thanks to the protection mechanisms established throughout Europe and the immediate and coordinated cooperation of the transmission system operators, normal operation for the whole of Europe was restored within an hour. APG controls the supra-regional power transmission grid in Austria.

The world’s longest immersed road and rail tunnel, the Fehmarnbelt link is going to be built. The state treaty between Germany and Denmark is valid and binding under international law: the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig has rejected the lawsuits against the controversial Fehmarn Belt crossing - thus removing the last major legal hurdles to the construction of the more than seven billion euro tunnel.

Both states explicitly adhered to the contract and the EU Commission continues to count the link as one of its most important transport projects, said presiding judge Wolfgang Bier in the oral reasoning of the judgement.

Scheduled to open in mid-2029, the work on the Danish side is expected to start on January 1, 2021, after several delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the government, Prime Minister Boris Johnson commissioned a corresponding study on Saturday. Among other things, the study is to focus on the feasibility of a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Johnson had recently repeatedly expressed sympathy for such a project. Such a bridge would have a length of at least 32 kilometers. In addition, the project is to focus on the possible expansion of air, road and rail links in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The results of the study should be available in the middle of next year.

Google has announced that it'll build a new subsea internet cable to connect the United States, the United Kingdom and Spain. The so-called "Grace Hopper" cable will be used to "better resilience for the network that underpins Google’s consumer and enterprise products" according to the press announcement.

The new cable connection will be the first private one for Google between the United States and the United Kingdom as well as Google's first one to Spain. The latter one will be connected to the planned "Google Cloud region in Madrid" and used to integrate it into the global infrastructure. Google has signed the contract with the subsea cable provider SubCom and expects the project to be completed in 2022.