Residents help a pickup driver get out of ice on the road in Round Rock, Texas on Wednesday after a winter storm. Millions of people were still without power. Photo: AFP

Nearly 2 million people were still without power early Thursday in Texas, the oil and gas capital of the US, with some facing water shortages as a deadly winter cold spell that pummeled the southeastern part of the country headed east.

The National Weather Service (NWS) issued a winter storm warning for a swathe of the country ranging from east Texas to the East Coast state of Maryland.

The NWS said the storm would bring ice, sleet and heavy snow to parts of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Mississippi as it tracks to the northeast, causing power outages, tree damage and making driving hazardous.

Even though the Arctic air mass was beginning to lose its grip on an area of the country not used to such extreme cold, the frigid temperatures would continue, the NWS said.

"The Arctic air will also continue over the Plains and Mississippi Valley with temperatures of 25 to 40 degrees below average," the NWS reported Wednesday.

President Joe Biden was forced to postpone until Friday a visit to the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing site in Kalamazoo, Michigan, while federal government offices in Washington were to be closed Thursday.

More than 30 storm-related deaths have been reported by media in the US since the cold weather arrived last week, many in traffic accidents.

Hundreds of thousands of residents in the Texas metropolis of Houston were suffering from both power outages and a loss of water pressure.

Nearly 7 million Texans were being advised to boil their water before drinking it or use it for cooking, Toby Baker, who heads the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said Wednesday, adding that nearly 264,000 people were impacted by nonoperational water systems.

AFP