As a colossal winter storm barrelled down on the Northeast and sections of the South this past weekend, Lisa Patterson made plans to weather it out at her family home in Nashville. However, as conditions deteriorated, she found herself facing dire circumstances.
When power outages struck, trees toppled onto their driveway, and their wood stove failed to combat the biting cold, Lisa, her husband, and their dog had no choice but to be evacuated to a warming shelter. “I’ve dealt with being snowed in for weeks without being able to access my driveway because of snow. I’m ready for that. But this was on a different level,” Patterson explained.
The Pattersons joined numerous families throughout Tennessee and the southern regions who sought refuge in warming centers. This mass exodus to safety came as crews scrambled to restore electricity to a staggering number of homes, all while another wave of arctic air loomed, set to bring plummeting temperatures to areas already blanketed in ice and snow.
The harsh weather has been relentless, leaving a trail of tragedy in its wake. At least 30 fatalities have been reported across the affected states. Incidents include two individuals fatally hit by snowplows in Massachusetts and Ohio, teenagers involved in sledding accidents in Arkansas and Texas, and the discovery of a woman’s body beneath the snow in Kansas. In New York City, the cold weekend resulted in eight people being found dead outdoors.
The storm unleashed over a foot of snow along a vast 1,300-mile stretch from Arkansas to New England, bringing transportation to a standstill, leading to the cancellation of thousands of flights, and forcing widespread school closures on Monday. The National Weather Service reported that regions north of Pittsburgh were buried under up to 20 inches of snow and braced for wind chills dropping to a chilling minus 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 31 degrees Celsius) from late Monday into Tuesday.
The storm had dropped over a foot (30 centimeters) of snow across a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) swath from Arkansas to New England, halting traffic, canceling thousands of flights and triggering wide school closures Monday. The National Weather Service said areas north of Pittsburgh got up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) of snow and faced wind chills as low as minus 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 31 degrees Celsius) late Monday into Tuesday.
More widespread record cold temperatures were forecast for Tuesday, with eastern Texas through western Pennsylvania under extreme cold warnings, according to the National Weather Service. In Kentucky, Gov. Andy Beshear warned that the temperatures could be so frigid that as little as 10 minutes outside “could result in frostbite or hypothermia.”
And forecasters said it’s possible another winter storm could hit parts of the East Coast this weekend.
There were still more than 550,000 power outages in the nation Monday night, according to poweroutage.com. Most of them were in the South, where weekend blasts of freezing rain caused tree limbs and power lines to snap, inflicting crippling outages on northern Mississippi and parts of Tennessee. Officials warned that it could take days for power to be restored.
In Mississippi, Gov. Tate Reeves said Monday at least 14 homes and 20 public roads had major damage in the aftermath of the state’s worst ice storm since 1994. The University of Mississippi canceled classes for the entire week as its Oxford campus remained coated in treacherous ice.
New York City saw its snowiest day in years, with neighborhoods recording 8 to 15 inches (20 to 38 centimeters) of snow, forcing the nation’s largest public school system to shut down.
Meanwhile, bitter cold followed in the storm’s wake. Communities across the Midwest, South and Northeast awakened Monday to subzero weather. The entire Lower 48 states were forecast to have their coldest average low temperature of minus 9.8 F (minus 12.3 C) since January 2014.
Nathan Hoffner sent his 4-year-old son to stay with his son’s mother after his rental house in Nashville lost power midday Sunday. He and his roommate layered up with clothes and several blankets overnight and by the next morning the temperature inside the home had dropped dramatically.
“I saw my breath in the house,” Hoffner said.
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Kramon reported from Atlanta. Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Associated Press writers around the country contributed.
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