RALEIGH, N.C. – As relentless icy winds lashed the shores of a beleaguered North Carolina island, four homes succumbed to the forces of nature, tumbling into the ocean. Meanwhile, down in Florida, farmers anxiously awaited the thawing of their frozen crops as a chilling spell continued to grip the eastern half of the United States.

Monday saw temperatures stubbornly clinging below freezing across the northern U.S., stretching from the Dakotas to Maine. The cold wasn’t set to release its icy grip anytime soon, with forecasts predicting a return of sub-freezing conditions overnight in the Southeast, extending as far as northern Florida.

Residents of the Carolinas and Virginia faced the daunting task of digging out from under heavy blankets of snow. Simultaneously, over 70,000 homes and businesses in Tennessee and Mississippi were enduring their second week without electricity. This power crisis was sparked by a previous onslaught of snow and ice that left a trail of destruction, damaging power lines and utility poles.

In Nashville, Tennessee, the situation was dire. Terry Miles recounted the harsh realities of his ninth day without power. He and his wife, along with their dog, confined themselves to a makeshift insulated bedroom, relying on blankets for warmth. Cooking and heating water became a challenge, met with a propane grill, while a small loaned gas generator provided just enough power to run a couple of space heaters.

“We’re roughing it,” Miles explained. “I’ve been camping before and had it easier than this. I feel like Grizzly Adams.”

As the cold wave persisted, the death toll in affected states tragically rose to over 110 since the onset of this harsh weather on January 24th. The brutal conditions have left a deep impact on communities, testing their resilience in the face of nature’s fury.

In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Monday that hypothermia played a role in the deaths of 13 people found dead outside in the bitter cold, according to preliminary findings. More than a dozen other suspected hypothermia deaths were reported in Indiana, Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas.

Winter winds collapsed four island homes

On the East Coast, where a weekend bomb cyclone brought heavy snow and fierce winds, the National Park Service said four unoccupied homes along North Carolina’s Outer Banks collapsed into the Atlantic Ocean since Sunday. A bystander recorded one of them toppling into the water. Photos taken by the agency showed piles of debris along the shoreline in the village of Buxton.

The Outer Banks’ narrow, low-lying barrier islands have been eroding for years as rising seas swallow the land. Prior to the latest storm, more than two dozen houses, usually built on stilts at the water’s edge, had collapsed since 2020. Most fell in extreme weather.

In Florida, where some farmers spray water on their fruit trees and plants ahead of freezing weather to help protect them from even deeper cold, fern growers were waiting Monday for a protective layer of ice coating their plants to melt away so they could assess damage. Florida got so cold over the weekend that the Tampa-St. Petersburg area saw snow flurries and cold-stunned iguanas were motionless on the ground.

The timing was especially awful for fern growers, who had been busy shipping plants to reach retailers ahead of Valentine’s Day on Feb. 14.

“It is just terrible timing,” said Victoria Register, director of sales and marketing at FernTrust, a growers’ cooperative in Seville, Florida. “It’s right in the middle of our busiest shipping time of the entire year.”

Nashville utility under fire as thousands remain without power

In Tennessee, frustrations were growing with the utility Nashville Electric Service over an outage that knocked out about a quarter-million customers’ power. More than 20,000 remained without electricity Monday after more than a week, and won’t be fully restored until Feb. 9, the utility said.

Nashville Electric Service has defended its response and said the storm was unprecedented, cutting off power to about half its customers.

But Mayor Freddie O’Connell announced Monday he’s ordering a review of Nashville Electric Service’s storm preparation and response. O’Connell met with utility leaders Sunday and said afterward they were “unequipped to communicate about a crisis.”

And Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee also criticized the Nashville utility, posting on social media: “whoever is responsible for this breakdown should be fired.”

After more than a week of cold-weather warnings across the eastern U.S., the National Weather Service still had a few alerts in effect, including a freeze warning through early Tuesday in south Georgia and most of Florida. Some snow was also expected Tuesday across parts of Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia.

Nearly a foot (29 centimeters) of snow fell over the weekend in Charlotte, North Carolina’s largest city. Gov. Josh Stein’s office said Monday that crews were still clearing interstates and highways.

“We are working around the clock to clear roads and get people back to their daily lives as quickly and safely as possible, but because temperatures will remain low overnight, this process takes time,” Stein said in a news release.

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Loller reported from Nashville, Tennessee, and Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. AP journalists Jonathan Mattise in Nashville; Bruce Shipkowski in Trenton, New Jersey; and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed.