
Thursday marked the fifth day in a row that thousands of homes have been left without power in the midst of record-smashing, freezing temperatures that rolled in with Winter Storm Uri at the weekend.
More than 488,000 still have no power, down from around 3 million Wednesday, after Governor Gregg Abbott ordered the state's natural gas producers to sell fuel to in-state power generators and demanded answers from the state's electricity supplier over the catastrophic failure that has contributed to the at least 10 storm-related deaths in Texas.

In Houston, hungry residents running out of supplies and having to toss spoiled food after days of no power in their homes lined up for four hours at a local Burger King to get a hot meal for the first time that day - before that too ran out of food.
Drinking water supply is even more concerning with seven million Texans across Arlington, Austin, Houston and San Antonio issued with boil water orders, around 263,000 people have been impacted by non-functioning water providers, and thousands dealing with burst water pipes.
