Power out for hundreds of thousands, roadways snarled with ice as dangerous weather hits due to storm

Hundreds of thousands of power outages are being reported across the South as a monster storm continues to hit huge sections of the country, snarling roadways with dangerous ice and forcing mass flight cancellations.

More than 600,000 power outages were reported in the path of the winter storm by Sunday morning, up from about 140,000 the previous day, according to the tracking website poweroutage.us. That includes more than 220,000 outages reported in Tennessee and over 125,000 reported in Texas, as well as another 115,000 in Louisiana and 120,000 in Mississippi. 

About 38,000 more customers were without power in Kentucky and 12,000 were without power in Georgia, according to the tracker.

Widespread heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain threatened nearly 180 million people — more than half the U.S. population — in a path stretching from the southern Rocky Mountains to New England, the National Weather Service said. It warned people to brace for a string of frigid days.

"The snow and the ice will be very, very slow to melt and won't be going away anytime soon, and that's going to hinder any recovery efforts," said Allison Santorelli, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

President Trump approved emergency declarations for at least a dozen states by Saturday, with more expected to come. The Federal Emergency Management Agency pre-positioned commodities, staff and search and rescue teams in numerous states, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.

"We just ask that everyone would be smart – stay home if possible," Noem said.

The Midwest saw windchills as low as minus 40 Fahrenheit, meaning that frostbite could set in within 10 minutes. The minus 36 Fahrenheit reading in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, on Saturday morning was the coldest in almost 30 years.

Storm hits the South 

In Shelby County, Texas, near the Louisiana border, ice weighed down on pine trees and caused branches to snap, downing power lines. About a third of the county's 16,000 electric customers lost power on Saturday.

"We have hundreds of trees down and a lot of limbs in the road," Shelby County Commissioner Stevie Smith said from his pickup truck. "I've got my crew out clearing roads as fast as we can. It's a lot to deal with right now."

There were reports of vehicles hitting fallen trees and trees falling onto houses in DeSoto Parish, Louisiana, where more than half of all electric customers lost power.

"We got limbs that are dragging the ground," said Mark Pierce, a spokesperson for the local sheriff's office. "These trees are just completely saturated with ice."

In Louisville, Kentucky, emergency services on Saturday handled more than 850 calls regarding collisions, stranded motorists and other emergencies related to exposure to cold, officials said, noting that the actual number could be even higher. Closer to the East Coast, Virginia State Police said early Sunday that the agency had thus far responded to 177 crashes since the storm began, with 14 of those incidents involving injuries.

Officials in Georgia advised people in the state's northern regions to get off the roads by sundown Saturday and be prepared to stay put for at least 48 hours.

Will Lanxton, the senior state meteorologist, said Georgia could get "perhaps the biggest ice storm we have expected in more than a decade" followed by unusually cold temperatures.

"Ice is a whole different ballgame than snow," Lanxton said. "Ice, you can't do anything with. You can't drive on it. It's much more likely to bring down power lines and trees."

Crews began treating highways with brine after midnight Saturday, with 1,800 workers on 12-hour shifts, Georgia Department of Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry said.

"We're going to do what we can to keep the ice from sticking to the roads," McMurry said. "This is going to be a challenge."

After earlier putting 500 National Guard members on standby, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp announced Saturday that he was deploying 120 of them to northeast Georgia "to further strengthen our response in the hardest hit areas."

Churches moved Sunday services online, and the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, decided to hold its Saturday night radio performance without fans. Mardi Gras parades in Louisiana were canceled or rescheduled.

School closings were already announced for Monday in numerous cities, including Dallas, Houston and Memphis.

Some universities in the South canceled classes for Monday, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Mississippi's main campus in Oxford.

Warnings for the Northeast

As crews in some southern states began working to restore downed power lines Saturday, officials in some eastern states issued final warnings to residents.

"We are expecting a storm the likes of which we haven't seen in years," New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said Saturday while announcing restrictions on commercial vehicle travel and a 35 mph speed limit on highways. She added: "It's a good weekend to stay indoors."

After sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to dump snow exceeding 1 foot in the Northeast, according to forecasters. 

"Please, if you can avoid it, do not drive, do not travel, do not do anything that can potentially place you or your loved ones in danger," New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Saturday. "Instead, I urge every New Yorker who can to put a warm sweater on, turn on the TV, watch 'Mission Impossible' for the 10th time, above all to stay inside."

Forecasters say the damage, especially in areas pounded by ice, could rival that of a hurricane. Weather forecasters also said the winter storm was unusual.

"I think there are two parts of this storm that make it unique. One is just a broad expanse of spatial coverage of this event ... You've got 2,000 miles of country that's being impacted by the storm with snow, sleet, and freezing rain," said Josh Weiss, a meteorologist at NOAA's Weather Prediction Center. "The other part of this storm that's really impressive is what's going to happen right afterward. We're looking at extreme cold, record cold."