Houston-area officials express outrage as residents pass 24 hours without power

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Houston-area politicians and officials are sounding off as some Houstonians pass 24 hours without power due to historic winter weather.

As of 6:40 a.m. Tuesday, over 4 million Texas households are without power, according to poweroutage.us. CenterPoint Energy reported over 1.3 million customers without power in the Houston-area.

Fort Bend County Judge KP George sounded off on Twitter, saying Texans must demand answers when it comes to widespread outages.

"As we enter sub-freezing temps (again!) we have no answers or sub-par answers from the State, grid operator, and utilities," George tweeted Monday night. "Our first responders are at full capacity with record high calls for service. We as Texans MUST demand answers."

He went on to call the state's response to the outages unacceptable.

"This is unacceptable. We have known for a week that the #ArcticFront was coming," he tweeted. "We deserve answers. This is a LIFE & DEATH situation."

Representative Sheila Jackson Lee expressed similar sentiments on Twitter, stating that "Texans are suffering and rapid action is needed."

She said she reached out to senior U.S. Department of Energy officials who agreed to her request to identify additional energy resources that may be brought to Texas to relieve the stress on the electric grid.

SEE ALSO: Gov. Abbott: Blame outages on power generators

Who's to blame for massive power outage caused by a historic winter storm across Texas? We asked Gov. Greg Abbott and here's his response.

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner also put pressure on the state to answer for the mass outages.

"The State must own and explain the magnitude of these power outages across the State," he said in a Tweet.

He went on to emphasize that ERCOT is responsible for the power grid, not the city or Harris County.

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo reminded his Twitter followers that as power outages continue, lives are at risk.

He asked the public to pray for the city's elderly and vulnerable populations, and, like other local leaders, said "State of Texas leaders must do better, lives depend on it."

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo took to Twitter to remind the public to only use 911 in a life-threatening situation as many Emergency Operations Center first responders are also without power.

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Houston and other area cities experiencing low water pressure

This winter storm is far from over, and it will take everyone's patience to keep each other safe.

Photo of lit-up skyline surrounded by homes in the dark sparks outrage on social media

10 P.M. MONDAY: Some people may have power, but could lose it. However, some people who didn't have power are getting it back, and then there are those that have been without power since early Monday morning. ABC13's Chauncy Glover takes a look at the power tracker. Plus, ABC13's Mayra Moreno takes you to one neighborhood that was out of power for most of the day.