Is Texas mayor right that residents should fend for themselves &  ‘Only the strong will survive’ ?

By Tuesday morning, the residents of Colorado City, Tex., were getting anxious. More than 24 hours had passed since a deadly Arctic blast knocked out power across the state, leaving them without heat or electricity in below-freezing temperatures. To make matters worse, many also lacked running water, forcing them to haul in heavy buckets of snow each time they needed to flush their toilets.

“No one owes you [or] your family anything,” Tim Boyd wrote on Tuesday in a now-deleted Facebook post, according to KTXS and KTAB/KRBC. “I’m sick and tired of people looking for a damn handout!”

“The City and County, along with power providers or any other service owes you NOTHING!” he wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.

Boyd suggested that residents without electricity should simply “step up and come up with a game plan.” Those without running water could either deal with it, or “think outside of the box to survive and supply water to your family.” He did not offer any further guidance, such as where safe drinking water or reliable electricity could be found.

“Only the strong will survive and the weak will [perish],” he wrote.

The controversy highlighted how one of the worst winter storms in decades is testing the limits of the embrace of self-sufficiency and rugged individualism in Texas.