Bitter cold and a winter storm spread across the eastern United States this week as officials reported rising deaths and utilities worked to restore electricity to hundreds of thousands of people. The cold reached as far south as Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina, and forecasters warned that temperatures were expected to plunge again overnight and worsen into the weekend.
The storm followed a brutal weekend that dumped deep snow across more than 1,300 miles (2,100 kilometers) from Arkansas to New England and left parts of the South coated in treacherous ice. As the aviation system began to return to normal after the weekend, FlightAware reported more than 17,000 commercial flights were canceled, with about 6,300 cancellations on Monday and about 2,500 on Tuesday. Less than 500 cancellations were anticipated for Wednesday, FlightAware said.
The Associated Press said officials in states affected by severe cold reported at least 50 deaths. In Texas, three brothers ages 6, 8 and 9 died Monday after falling through ice on a private pond near Bonham, according to Fannin County Sheriff Cody Shook. Their mother, Cheyenne Hangaman, told AP that she ran into the freezing lake and tried to pull her sons from the water as the ice kept breaking. “They were just screaming, telling me to help them,” Hangaman said. “And I watched all of them struggle, struggle to stay above the water. I watched all of them fight.”
In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves said Tuesday evening that several counties needed bottled water, blankets, tarps, fuel and generators, and that the state’s National Guard is using aircraft to deliver supplies to hard-hit communities. The state’s Department of Transportation said three 18-wheeler trucks stalled on an icy Interstate 55 in northern Mississippi, causing a major backup Tuesday night. The governor said various resources—ranging from first responders to drones and tow trucks—were being deployed to clear the highway and help stranded drivers.
Temperatures were forecast to keep dropping and to break records. The Weather Prediction Center warned Tuesday that for some places the stretch could include “the coldest temperature seen in several years” and “the longest duration of cold in several decades.” Freezing temperatures hovered Tuesday as far south as Tennessee, Arkansas and North Carolina, and parts of northern Florida were expected to sink to 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 3.9 degrees Celsius) late Tuesday into early Wednesday.
Utilities and local governments faced continuing power failures. Crews were working Tuesday evening to restore power to more than 410,000 homes and businesses without electricity, AP reported. Over half of the outages were in Tennessee and Mississippi, where temperatures were described as expected to bottom out at the end of the week. In Nashville, the National Weather Service predicted the low Friday night would dip to 4 F (minus 15.6 C), while Oxford in northern Mississippi could hit 10 F (minus 12.2 C).
In Nashville, more than 110,000 outages remained Tuesday in the city and neighboring communities, and Nashville Electric Service said it dispatched more than 740 workers to restore power. Nashville officials said nearly 440 people spent Monday night at community centers used as temporary shelters, while 1,400 more stayed at area homeless shelters; many residents also booked rooms at local hotels. Lisa Patterson told AP that she planned to ride out the freeze at her home in Nashville but lost power, trees fell onto her driveway, and her wood stove could not keep up with the cold. “When you’re used to certain things, you miss them when they’re gone,” Patterson said. She also said she had been snowed in for almost three weeks previously without being able to get up and down her driveway, adding, “But this was unprecedented.”
Health officials also warned residents against unsafe heating methods. The Associated Press reported that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned gas-powered stoves used to heat a home can give off fumes that increase the risk of carbon monoxide poisoning, and that at least one carbon monoxide death was reported in Louisiana, according to the state Health Department.
School and travel disruptions continued as the cold lingered. North Carolina’s largest public school system closed schools again on Wednesday, and the Wake County school system said on Facebook it was “due to the continued threat of black ice.” In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear warned that temperatures could become so frigid that as little as 10 minutes outside could result in frostbite or hypothermia. In New York City, officials said 10 people had been found dead outdoors in the cold, and AP reported additional deaths across a dozen states, including people hit by snowplows in Massachusetts and Ohio and two teenagers killed while sledding in Arkansas and Texas, along with a man found in his home in the Indianapolis area with no heat.
As another winter system approached, the National Weather Service said more record lows were expected Friday and Saturday and warned that another winter storm could hit parts of the East Coast this weekend, with more record lows forecast as far south as Florida.
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