Severe Weather and Public Safety

Frisco, Texas police say a 16-year-old girl was killed and another 16-year-old girl critically injured Sunday afternoon when the sled they were riding, being towed by a 16-year-old boy driving a Jeep Wrangler on a residential street, struck a curb and crashed into a tree amid icy storm conditions. First responders arrived just before 3 p.m., performed life-saving measures on both teens and transported them to local hospitals, where one later died and the other remains in critical condition. Police are not publicly naming the juveniles, but the victim was identified in a family social-media post as Elizabeth Marie Angle, a Wakeland High School sophomore and soccer player for her school and FC Dallas. The accident occurred as a major winter storm left much of North Texas coated in ice, sleet and snow and crippled power and travel across the South, and Frisco authorities are using the case to warn residents that sledding behind vehicles on slick streets can be deadly. The investigation is ongoing, and no charges have yet been announced.

Officials warned of an approaching winter storm while the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission detailed heightened home-heating fire and carbon-monoxide risks, noting electric space heaters are involved in about 1,600 fires a year and fireplaces and chimneys in roughly 15,400 fires annually. The CPSC advises keeping space heaters three feet from flammables and plugged directly into wall outlets (and turned off when sleeping), using gasoline generators only outdoors at least 20 feet from the home, installing and testing smoke and carbon-monoxide alarms on every level and in each bedroom, and having furnaces, boilers, fireplaces, wood stoves and chimneys professionally inspected and maintained.