At least 30 dead as brutal winter storm slams U.S.

Millions across the United States endured another night of below-freezing temperatures and power outages as a massive winter storm dumped additional snow across the Northeast on Monday and left parts of the South coated in ice.

At least 30 deaths have been reported in states affected by the severe cold, News.Az reports, citing AP.

Deep snow — exceeding a foot (30 centimeters) and stretching across a 1,300-mile (2,100-kilometer) corridor from Arkansas to New England — brought transportation to a standstill, forced widespread flight cancellations, and led to extensive school closures on Monday. The National Weather Service said areas north of Pittsburgh received up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) of snow, with wind chills plunging to as low as minus 25 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 31 degrees Celsius) late Monday into Tuesday.

The bitter cold affecting nearly two-thirds of the country showed no signs of easing. The weather service warned that a fresh surge of Arctic air is expected to keep temperatures well below freezing in regions already blanketed by snow and ice. Forecasters also said another winter storm could strike parts of the East Coast later this weekend.

The growing death toll included two people fatally struck by snowplows in Massachusetts and Ohio, separate sledding accidents that killed teenagers in Arkansas and Texas, and a woman whose body was discovered buried under snow after police tracked her with bloodhounds following her disappearance from a Kansas bar. In New York City, officials reported that eight people were found dead outdoors over the frigid weekend.

There were still more than 560,000 power outages in the nation Monday evening, 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, officials scrambled to get cots, blankets, bottled water and generators to warming stations in hard-hit areas in the aftermath of the state’s worst ice storm since 1994. At least 14 homes, one business and 20 public roads had major damage, Gov. Tate Reeves said Monday evening.

The University of Mississippi, where most students hunkered down without power Monday, canceled classes for the entire week as its Oxford campus remained coated in treacherous ice. Oxford Mayor Robyn Tannehill said on social media that so many trees, limbs and power lines had fallen that “it looks like a tornado went down every street.”

A pair of burly, falling tree branches damaged real estate agent Tim Phillips’ new garage, broke a window and cut off power to his home in Oxford.

News.Az 

By Nijat Babayev