IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Winter Weather: Ice Storm Leaves 300,000 Without Power in South

The South has been brought to a standstill by snow and ice that’s knocked out power to more than 335,000 people.
Get more newsLiveon

More than 300,000 people woke up without power and federal government offices in Washington were closed on Tuesday after a rare band of snow and ice sliced across the South.

The northern edge of the system dropped another round of snow on the Northeast and winter-weary New England. But the system did most of its damage in the South, where roads were slickened and more than 1,500 flights were canceled. At least seven people were killed on icy roads.

Power was out for 153,000 customers in Georgia, 76,000 in South Carolina and 35,000 in North Carolina, plus tens of thousands more in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Washington, D.C. Five states declared emergencies, including Tennessee, where hundreds of people were stranded on snowy, icy roads.

Police in Franklin, Tennessee, identified a mother and son who were killed on Monday night when they got out of their car to help five people in an SUV that had hit a patch of ice on Interstate 65 and flipped.

The mother, Kristi Clark, 34, and the son, Carter Oakley, 10, were killed when they were struck by a tractor-trailer. The Franklin police chief called them heroes. Two of the five people in the SUV were taken to the hospital, where they were in critical condition on Tuesday.

The top snow total was 18 inches near Coleman, Kentucky, and a ¾-inch coating of ice was reported in Strawberry Plains, Tennessee. Logan, West Virginia, got 15 inches, and Dickenson County, Virginia, reported a foot of snow.

In Hampton, Virginia, an SUV careened, crashed into a car and barreled toward a camera being used by NBC affiliate WAVY. It stopped just inches short.

Snowplows couldn’t keep up in Louisville, Kentucky, where more than 7 inches of snow fell. “You are not going to see bare pavement for a number of days, probably,” Harold Adams, a spokesman for the public works department there, told NBC affiliate WAVE.

In North Carolina, a 19-year-old woman was killed on Monday night when she lost control of her car in Hertford County, along the Virginia line, Gov. Pat McCrory said.

Temperatures across North Carolina were well below freezing on Tuesday, and the governor warned that the roads would be icy for some time.

“This is not your typical North Carolina winter storm,” he told reporters. “We’re used to the Carolina sunshine coming right back. That’s not going to happen.”

More winter weather was on the way. Forecasters warned that another system arriving Thursday would probably being more snow, more ice and below-zero temperatures in Kentucky, Tennessee in West Virginia.

In Nashville, Tennessee, the temperature could drop as low as 13 below zero, said Kevin Roth, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel. That would be the latest subzero day there since records were first kept in 1871.

“For anyone who is still without power when it hits, it is going to be very, very cold,” Roth said. “They are probably going to have to find some other shelter or a hotel because they are not going to be able to stand that level of cold otherwise.”

NBC News' M. Alex Johnson and Shamar Walters and The Weather Channel's Chad Burke contributed to this report.