Homeland Security Adviser Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall informed reporters Thursday that the winter weather situations in Texas and other areas “demonstrate to us that climate change is real and it’s happening now and we’re not adequately prepared for it”.

Speaking of the ongoing storm that has begun to threaten Americans’ livelihood, Sherwood-Randall revealed that at least one million individuals remain without power.

The Homeland Security official explained that due to the concentration of outages in Texas, the White House has authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide “immediate assistance” to Texas.

At least 60 generators, 729,000 liters of water, 225,000 meals and tens of thousands of blankets have already been provided to Texas by FEMA, Sherwood-Randall highlighted.

Officials believe that while the power outages are rolling blackouts are likely to continue in Texas.

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) announced in a Thursday morning release that “significant progress” was made Wednesday night, but the grid operator and transmission owners remain at work to restore power to customers across the state.

“We’re to the point in the load restoration where we are allowing transmission owners to bring back any load they can related to this load shed event,” said ERCOT Senior Director of System Operations Dan Woodfin. “We will keep working around the clock until every single customer has their power back on.”

In addition to Texas’ estimated 492,000 power outages, Mississippi, Louisiana and Oregon have all been heavily impacted by the winter weather and chilly conditions.

As of this article’s publication, PowerOutage.US logs at least 165,000 power outages in Mississppi, 120,000 blackouts in Louisiana and more than 100,000 power outages in Oregon.