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 The storm dumped snow and spread ice from New England into the
Carolinas after battering the Midwest and Ohio Valley. Temperatures
hit -30 Fahrenheit (-34 Celsius) in Saranac Lake, New York,
according to the National Weather Service.
States of emergency were declared from Mississippi to the District
of Columbia, and the federal government shut down in Washington
after about 5 inches (13 cm) of snow. School was called off in West
Virginia, the Washington, D.C., area, parts of Kentucky and much of
North Carolina.
Another arctic front from the Great Lakes to the southern Great
Plains will sweep to the eastern U.S. coast by Thursday, the
National Weather Service said. Temperatures in the Middle Atlantic
states and Carolinas could reach lows not seen since the mid-1990s.
North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory urged residents to stay off
ice-covered roads. “The extended low temperatures ... and black ice
will make this a very dangerous situation for several days,” he said
at a news conference.
At least six weather-related highway deaths were reported in
Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina. Police worked through the
night to clear a 12-mile (19-km) backup of vehicles on icy
Interstate 40 near Nashville.
Jeremy Perry, a Shell gas station mechanic in Brentwood, Tennessee,
said he had slept at the station overnight because the weather was
so bad.
"Good thing I did, too, 'cause only two of us are here this morning.
So I opened,” he said. Traffic was so light that the station only
sold about 30 gallons (114 liters) of fuel during the morning rush
hour, down from the normal 600 to 700 gallons (2,270 to 2,650
liters).
Airlines canceled about 1,600 U.S. flights and commuter train
service in northern Virginia was halted. About 11 inches (28 cm) of
snow fell near Richmond, Virginia, and state police reported 1,035
accidents in 20 hours.
About 150 people gathered at Washington's Meridian Hill Park for a
snowball fight sponsored by the Washington D.C. Snowball Fight
Association.
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"This weather's good, everybody's nice. So, lovin' it," Collin
Lawrence, who was costumed as Marvel Comics' Captain America and
plastered with snow, told Reuters Television.
Schools in Lexington, Louisville and several other Kentucky
districts will be out again on Wednesday. Almost half of the state's
counties had declared emergencies, as well as 15 towns, the state
Emergency Management Division said.
Officials in Ithaca, New York, pulled a pop-up window on its tourism
page that had urged visitors to go to the Florida Keys instead.
"Please come back when things thaw out," it said.
In Maine, two 15-year-old boys spent a night out in sub-zero (-18C)
weather when their snowmobile bogged down but were unharmed after
taking shelter in a shed. The intense cold forced the Pittsburgh Zoo
to shut down until Friday.
(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Additional reporting by Jim Brumm and
Colleen Jenkins in North Carolina, Gary Robertson in Richmond, Tom
Ramstack, Lacey Johnson and Reuters TV's Collette Luke in
Washington, Elizabeth Daley in Pittsburgh, Dave Sherwood in Maine
and Tim Ghianni in Nashville; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Bill
Trott)
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