In February of 2021, when a prolonged Arctic blast settled over Texas and dumped multiple rounds of heavy snowfall throughout the state — including a record five inches at Dallas-Fort Worth airport — the spiking energy demand overwhelmed Texas’ fragile grid, causing the largest infrastructure failure in state history.
In addition to hundreds of deaths, including at least 42 in North Texas, the power outages left more than 4 million homes without electricity. And the resulting economic damage, from everything from contaminated water supplies to widespread property damage, was severe, with a final impact cost that most estimates put at upwards of $200 billion.
For some North Texans, the freezing temperatures and wintry conditions the region suffered in the past week proved disruptive, although on a smaller scale. Several area residents died, including two teenagers involved in a sledding accident. Area businesses were forced to close, losing out on critical revenue. Hourly and gig workers lost shifts.
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Yet despite some isolated outages, the state’s grid held, and local property damage was minimal. The upshot is a winter storm that — even as it consumed North Texans’ lives for multiple days — will leave behind a notable but relatively modest regional economic impact.
“It’s disruptive right now,” said Bill Adams, the D-FW-based chief economist at Comerica Bank, “but I think the local economy should get back to normal quite quickly.”
A car splashes through standing water after a snow storm, on Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Dallas.
Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer
‘Very unusual event’
That’s partly because, while Texas bore the brunt of Winter Storm Yuri’s damage in 2021, this time Winter Storm Fern — as The Weather Channel dubbed the historic weather event — struck harder elsewhere.
Many parts of the South unaccustomed to harsh winters, including cities such as Nashville and Oxford, Miss., were left littered with fallen trees and ice-coated power lines, leaving hundreds of thousands without power. Oklahoma, blasted by record-breaking snow, suffered significant property damage, including one hotel’s dramatic roof collapse.
Nationally, the storm — which impacted some 200 million people across more than 30 states — is projected to be expensive.
In one preliminary estimate, AccuWeather tallied its total economic impact at $105 billion to $115 billion, a cost that would rank somewhat higher, in inflation-adjusted terms, than 2012’s Hurricane Sandy and roughly five times as expensive as last year’s Hill Country floods.
The price tag of the 2021 winter storm, by AccuWeather’s estimate, came to $180 billion in inflation-adjusted terms, while Hurricane Harvey, which devastated Houston in 2017, cost $240 billion.
“This was a very unusual event, with the combination of the significant snow and ice storm, then the extreme cold over such a widespread area,” said Jonathan Porter, an AccuWeather chief meteorologist who worked on the company’s cost estimate.
The storm’s large economic toll largely comes from extensive transportation disruptions. Nationwide, more than 25,000 flights were cancelled, and widespread road and air closures also wreaked havoc on supply chains. Downed power lines and trees, as well as business closures, also inflicted a significant cost, especially in areas that are seeing extended power outages, such as northern Louisiana.
Early damage estimates specific to Texas or North Texas are not yet readily available. AccuWeather declined to provide more localized figures, citing proprietary data, and a representative for the Dallas Fed, a top source of regional economic analyses, said the bank was in a media blackout because of this week’s Federal Reserve policy meeting.
Yet even without cost estimates, as D-FW’s roads began to thaw and local kids returned to school, early assessments from economists and area business leaders suggested something of a muted overall regional economic impact. North Texas certainly suffered some damage, in other words, but it also could have been much worse.
“The situation has been much better than what we saw during Winter Storm Uri,” Ray Perryman, who leads a Waco-based economic analysis firm, wrote to The News in an email. “Nonetheless, economic costs of basically shutting down some aspects of the regional economy will certainly be substantial.”
The most impacted local sector, in all likelihood, will be the restaurant and services industry. While bad weather may push local residents looking to buy a car or iPad to delay those purchases, economists point out, people generally won’t eat out more once the weather clears to compensate for missed restaurant meals or bar drinks.
Servers who missed shifts also lost tips. One local owner, Jimmy Contreras, who has two popular taco and wine joints in the area, told The News his businesses lost upwards of $30,000 when they closed for part of the storm.
“That’s not something you recover from,” he said.
North Texas was also hit hard as a major transportation and aviation hub. Between last Friday and Thursday, DFW Airport, one of the world’s busiest, suffered around 2,500 outbound flight cancellations alone — more than any other airport.
And Fort Worth-based American Airlines, which also has hubs in heavily storm-impacted Charlotte, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia and New York, ended up as the most affected airline, with airline leadership calling the storm the worst weather disruption in company history.
In this week’s earnings call, American CFO Devon May said the company expected to lose between $150 million and $200 million in revenue from the disruptions. The widespread cancellations also meant significant losses for DFW, which earns revenue from landing fees, disrupted deliveries for area businesses and at least some cut to area tourism.
“I’d just say this,” American CEO Robert Isom added on the company’s earnings call, “that Winter Storm Fern — this is something that is relatively unprecedented. I won’t say that it’s never happened before, but we get this kind of storm, you know, once every 5-10 years in D-FW.” (The airport declined to provide storm-related economic figures.)
Yet even some hospitality businesses appear to have come out unscathed. At the four area hotels managed by Aimbridge Hospitality, which include the Downtown Dallas AC Marriott and the SpringHill Suites in Dallas’ West End neighborhood, a few group reservations asked to be moved to different dates, and employees were forced to miss a couple days of work, said Edith Jaramillo, an area sales coordinator.
“But other than that,” she said, “it wasn’t anything too bad.”
Major manufacturing companies also reported minimal disruptions. A representative for Arlington Assembly, a 250-acre General Motors plant that produces models including the Chevrolet Tahoe and Cadillac Escalade, told The News the plant was closed for two days. Representatives for L3 Harris and Lockheed Martin, both national aerospace companies with multiple locations in North Texas, said they saw no impact.
Area property damage — a major factor in the cost runup related to the 2021 winter storm, as well as other major events such as hurricanes or tornadoes — was also minor.
Five years ago, a representative for State Farm said, the company received over 50,000 insurance claims throughout Texas. As of late Wednesday, it had received around 600 throughout the state for this February’s storm, the representative said, although the company expected that count to rise. North Texas construction activity that was temporarily delayed should also bounce back quickly.
On the whole, said Adams, the Comerica Bank economist, the storm’s impact may have some impact on North Texas’ regional GDP report for the first quarter, likely revealing a blip in consumer spending. “But once we get the full year 2026 numbers,” he added, “this headwind will probably be a short-lived problem that doesn’t move the needle.”
Assistant business editor Kyle Arnold and staff writers Sasha Richie and Claire Ballor contributed reporting.