Hundreds of thousands of Texans without heat, with no clear timeline for getting power back

More than 300,000 businesses and households in Central and East Texas did not have power Wednesday as a winter storm’s freezing rain persisted, immobilizing portions of the state with slick roadways and covering tree limbs and power lines with ice.

In the Austin area, more than 170,000 customers were without power around 4:30 p.m. Austin Energy warned that many of those outages would persist into Thursday.

“Outages may extend into tomorrow. Customers are asked to be prepared with emergency plans and relocate safely, if needed, before 5 p.m.,” the company tweeted.