A Texas man has been whacked with an eye-watering $16,752 (£11,951) electricity bill after the state was hit with severe weather conditions which took out huge swathes of the power grid.
Millions of Texans were left with no heating or electricity when a devastating storm hit, but some of those who were lucky enough to still have power are not feeling quite so lucky now their energy bills are arriving.
Scott Willoughby, 63, told the New York Times he was hit with a $16,752 (£11,951) electric bill - a whopping 70 times what he usually forks out for all his utilities combined.
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He told the news outlet: "My savings is gone.
"There's nothing I can do about it, but it's broken me."
And Mr Willoughby isn't the only one who's seen a massive spike in their utility bills in the state - DeAndre Upshaw, from Dallas, told CNN he, too, received a 'very shocking' $7,000 (£4,994) bill.
He said: "While I'm trying to get gas and groceries and make sure that my pipes don't explode, the last thing I'm thinking about is a $7,000 bill from my utility company."
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According to the Financial Times, the wholesale price of electricity flew up to the maximum allowable rate of $9,000 (£6,421) a megawatt hour for five days last week.
This means that homes were charged $9 (£6.42) per kilowatt-hour compared to the usual cost of just 12 cents (9p).
As a result, Texas Governor Greg Abbott was forced to hold an emergency meeting to discuss the issue.
In a statement following the meeting, Abbott said: "We have a responsibility to protect Texans from spikes in their energy bills that are a result of the severe winter weather and power outages.
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"Today's meeting was productive, and I applaud Republican and Democrat members of the Legislature for putting aside partisan politics to work together on this challenge.
"We are moving quickly to alleviate this problem and will continue to work collaboratively throughout this week on solutions to help Texas families and ensure they do not get stuck with skyrocketing energy bills."
While the Texas' utility regulator, Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT), told CNN it was investigating the 'the factors that combined with the devastating winter weather to disrupt the flow of power to millions of Texas homes'.
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