Power outages continue amid winter blast in Texas

The arctic blast slamming much of the United States right now is causing devastation in Texas.

This week’s extreme weather has been blamed for the deaths of more than 30 people, some of whom died while struggling to keep warm inside their homes.

In the Houston area, one family succumbed to carbon monoxide from car exhaust in their garage.

A grandmother and three children died when flames escaped the fireplace they were using to keep warm.

In Texas, about 560,000 homes and businesses were still without electricity Thursday morning, down from about three million the day before.

But Texas’ grid manager, under fire for its response to the winter storm, has warned that the outages could fluctuate during hours of peak energy demand.

Adding to the misery, the snowy weather has jeopardized drinking water systems throughout the state.

Texas officials ordered 7 million people – a quarter of the population of the nation’s second-largest state – to boil tap water before drinking it following days of record low temperatures that damaged infrastructure and froze pipes.

In Austin, some hospitals faced a loss in water pressure and in some cases, heat.