Little had gotten a call from Port Aransas Police Chief Scott Burroughs who said he wanted all the soup they had at the food pantry because he was planning to feed 80 to 90 people the next day and they needed hot meals. Jo Lang is on the board at the Helping Hands Food Pantry and is in charge of purchasing, so she knew what the inventory was when fellow board member Bob Little called her Monday night, Feb. Locke spent later nights that week at the Civic Center and First Baptist Church, where there was heat. “They really blasted that door,” he said, adding that he was freed within 30 minutes. From inside, Locke could hear the flame roaring. The RV park manager used a propane torch to melt away the ice that had sealed the door shut. They were among a number of Port Aransas residents who spent nights in the church building after power outages made it too cold to stay in their own homes. Starr Locke, right, and Marg Larsen, background, relax in the warm main building of First Baptist Church on the morning of Friday, Feb. Soon, he heard these words outside: “This is the Port Aransas police! Are you OK in there?” After he found his RV door stuck, he called police and the manager of his RV park. When Locke awoke in his RV Monday morning, “it was absolutely freezing, and all the electricity was out,” he said. With temperatures plunging to the low 20s, electrical service failing and water service lost, some folks hunkered down under multiple blankets at home, while others left town or took refuge in a “warming center” operated at the Civic Center and a shelter set up at First Baptist Church. Locke’s crazy situation was just one of many that Port Aransans had to bear during the historic freeze that struck Texas last week. Police were called, and someone grabbed a blowtorch. 15, his RV’s door frozen shut by an overnight accumulation of ice.

Robert “Starr” Locke found himself trapped in his Port Aransas home on the morning of Monday, Feb. Madeline and her family were forced to keep Quincy warm in their arms after losing power in their house due to the cold weather. Madeline McLaughlin, 9, holds her Australian bearded dragon, Quincy, in her Port Aransas family home on Friday, Feb.

Deepfreeze by Robert Donald Locke