Powerful storm hits US East Coast, brings snow to areas unaccustomed to it

Temperatures neared the teens (minus 10 degrees Celsius) in Nashville, Tennessee, and frustrations bubbled up for those who spent a week without power

A powerful storm bore down on the East Coast on Saturday, with forecasters warning of howling winds, flooding and heavy snow, including in some Southeast coastal communities more accustomed to hurricanes than blizzards. Temperatures plummeted even as tens of thousands of homes and businesses remained without power.

In Myrtle Beach, South Carolina - whose official seal is the sun, palm trees and a seagull - 15 cm of snow was expected. The city has no snow removal equipment, and authorities planned to "use what we can find," Mayor Mark Kruea said.

Subfreezing weather was forecast into February, with heavy snow in the Carolinas, Virginia and northeast Georgia over the weekend including up to a foot (30 cm) in parts of North Carolina. Snow was also said to be possible from Maryland to Maine.

 

Saturday night and early Sunday, forecasters said, wind and snow could lead to blizzard conditions before the storm moves out to sea.

The frigid cold was expected to plunge as far south as Florida.

Temperatures neared the teens (minus 10 Celsius) in Nashville, Tennessee, and frustrations bubbled up for those who spent a week without power.

Terry Miles, a 59-year-old construction worker whose home has had no electricity since a previous storm struck Sunday, resorted to using a fish fryer for heat and worried about the danger of carbon monoxide.

"I'm taking a chance of killing myself and killing my wife, because - Why?" Miles said after attending a Nashville Electric Service news conference intended to showcase the utility's repairs on poles and lines. He then pointed to officials.

More than 170,000 homes and businesses were without electricity, mostly in Mississippi and Tennessee, according to the outage tracking website poweroutage.us. That included more than 57,000 in Nashville as of Friday night.

Tennessee Gov Bill Lee said he shared "strong concerns" with leadership of Nashville Electric Service, adding that residents "need a clear timeline for power restoration, transparency on the number of linemen deployed, and a better understanding of when work will be completed in their neighbourhood".

The utility has defended its response, saying the storm that struck last weekend was unprecedented.

Mississippi officials said the massive winter storm was its worst since 1994. About 80 warming centres were opened, and National Guard troops delivered supplies by truck and helicopter.

Experts warned of the growing risks of hypothermia. Frostbite was also a concern in the South, where some people may lack sufficiently warm clothing, said Dr David Nestler, an emergency medicine specialist at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.

More than 100 people have died from Texas to New Jersey, roughly half of them in Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana. While some deaths have been attributed to hypothermia, others are suspected to be related to carbon monoxide exposure. Officials have not released specific details about some deaths.

In North Carolina, hundreds of National Guard soldiers readied to help and state workers worked to prepare roads.

The city of Wake Forest saw a steady stream of people filling propane tanks Friday at Holding Oil and Gas, including Jose Rosa, who arrived after striking out at three other places.

"I'm here in this cold weather, and I don't like it," Rosa said as he held a 9-km tank.

In Dare County, home to much of North Carolina's Outer Banks, residents worried that more unoccupied houses in communities like Rodanthe and Buxton could collapse into the Atlantic Ocean.