Houston, Texas - Health officials in Texas scrambled on Monday to distribute over 5,000 Covid-19 vaccines after a deadly winter storm left millions without electricity.

In the most populous area of the state, Harris County, a series of power outages from the snow storm forced officials to administer vaccines just hours before they expired.

Typically, a backup generator would have prevented the worst, but when the backup at the Harris County Health Department also failed on Monday morning, over 8,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine were threatening to expire.

"By the time we realized what had happened, we had about six hours or so to get the vaccine distributed. There were around 8,300 doses that we needed to distribute," Lina Hidalgo, a county judge and emergency management director for Harris County, told BuzzFeed News.

"We could not ask individuals to drive anywhere because the roads were totally impassable."

The county eventually distributed the vaccines to three hospitals, the Harris County Jail, and Rice University.

"The moment we have vaccines that are about to spoil, we can't say, 'No we're not going to give it to these folks because they’re too young' or whatever it is. We've got to get them into arms," Hidalgo explained.

Moderna later advised officials to return the remaining vaccines to storage facilities, as the rest could be used for patients later that day.

Meanwhile, Hidalgo praised the county officials' successful efforts to administer the vaccines while battling the challenges of a record-breaking storm in the area.

Meanwhile, Hidalgo praised the county officials' successful efforts to administer the vaccines while battling the challenges of a record-breaking storm in the area.

"Everybody was in a mass scramble," she said. "Luckily, not a single dose was lost, not a single vial was wasted."