A rare winter storm glazed the South with snow and ice on Tuesday, prompting three states to declare a state of emergency, closing the New Orleans airport and causing chaos on roads for Atlanta drivers unaccustomed to the dangerously slick conditions, Reuters reported.
An arctic front that has put much of the Northeast and northern Plains under warnings and advisories for severe wind chill has crossed over to the southern region.
Temperatures in parts of those regions could feel as cold as minus 30 Fahrenheit (minus 34 Celsius) on Tuesday, the National Weather Service said.
Requesting motorists to stay off the roads, a state of emergency was declared by Louisiana, Mississippi, and North Caroline, Reuters reported.
"Residents should not overreact but should make plans now to ensure they are prepared for prolonged freezing conditions and icy roadways," Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant said.
Louis Armstrong International Airport was closed off to commercial traffic on Tuesday ahead of the predicted ice storm. The 24-mile Causeway Bridge, which spans Lake Pontchartrain, was also shut off by authorities because of icy conditions.
New Orleans hit a low of 23 degrees Fahrenheit (-5 Celsius) on Tuesday night and the city could see its first snowfall in years.
"This is pretty rare in New Orleans," Mike Efferson of the National Weather Service Office in Slidell, Louisiana, said of the conditions. "This only happens about every 10 years."
While schools and government offices were closed across countries, airlines canceled or delayed thousands of flights, and officials closed roads as conditions worsened, Reuters reported.
According to the weather service, snow was expected in North Carolina and South Caroline, while the heaviest ice accumulation was forecast from Louisiana to the Carolinas.
"Temperatures 10 to 20 degrees colder than normal were expected to continue for much of the eastern United States. In Washington, the National Gallery's skating rink was closed, with officials saying it was too cold for skaters to be out on the ice," according to Reuters.
"We're getting a bit of everything," said Jody White, a police sergeant in Opelousas, Louisiana. "It's cold. The sleet is coming down in patches."
After a seven-car pileup on an ice-covered bridge near Montgomery, Ala., two people died and five others were hospitalized, said Robyn Litchfield, an Alabama Department of Public Safety spokeswoman.
Citing weather concerns, lawmakers in South Carolina canceled this week's session of the state legislature, Reuters reported.
With more than 3,000 U.S. flights canceled and hundreds of others delayed, the storm took a toll on air travel across the region, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.com.
The manager of a popular Louisiana grocery store said it was packed with shoppers stocking up on food and supplies before it also closed, according to Reuters.
"They were buying hurricane stuff, including a lot of spirits, of course," said Edwin Moreno, manager at Dorignac's Food Center in suburban New Orleans.
Winter weather advisories were also issued for a wide swath of eastern and central Texas for Tuesday, with predictions of up to 1 inch (2.5 cm) of snow near the state's border with northern Louisiana.
"Rain and freezing temperatures combined to snarl the morning commute through large parts of central Texas and Louisiana, where roads and bridges were iced over," Reuters reported. "Police in Austin, Texas, reported more than 150 crashes caused by icy roads but said there had been no fatalities."
Around Atlanta, nearly all public entities and most businesses were shut down early Wednesday. Officials encouraged would-be motorists not to drive. City buses were also not running.
Schoolchildren were stranded Wednesday morning across the region, including nearly a thousand children in schools outside Birmingham, Ala., and 850 in Marietta, Ga., where buses started to take the kids home on Tuesday afternoon but had to turn back because of bad roads, Reuters reported.
Birmingham Mayor William Bell said teachers stayed with stranded students throughout the night, giving them food and water and trying to keep them calm.
"We realize that is not good enough for parents who want to hold their children in their arms,'' Bell told Reuters."We are doing all we can to reunite children with their parents.''
