By Rich McKay and Georgina McCartney
ATLANTA (Reuters) – An historic January storm dumped more deep snow along the U.S. Gulf Coast on Wednesday after bringing Houston and New Orleans to a near standstill over the past two days and burying parts of Florida’s Panhandle with accumulations more typical of Chicago.
Another 4 inches (10 cm) of snow, combined with sleet and freezing rain, was expected to pile up in some spots in northern Florida, southern Georgia and southeast South Carolina as the storm crawled through the region, the National Weather Service said on Wednesday.
Florida may have already broken its all-time record of snowfall with 9 inches in the western Panhandle town of Milton, near Pensacola, according to Frank Pereira, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center.
Before this storm, Milton Mayor Heather Lindsay said she had not seen a snowflake fall in town since 2014.
“We’re taking it in stride, but everything is shut,” said Lindsay. The city has no snow plows and most residents don’t even own a snow shovel, she said.
“But the kids are out using kayaks and inner tubes as sleds, enjoying a snow day,” she said.
After the precipitation dissipates later on Wednesday, frigid air will remain along the Gulf Coast and the East Coast at least until this weekend.
“The cold is sticking around,” Pereira said.
Tallahassee, Florida’s capital city, where temperatures are typically in the 60s in January, was expected to see a low of 4 degrees Fahrenheit (-15 degrees Celsius) on Wednesday.
The winter storm had already slammed major Gulf Coast cities such as Houston, where 4 inches (10 cm) of snow fell, the most the city has gotten since 1960. In the New Orleans area, a record 10 inches (25 cm) of snow accumulated in some places, turning Bourbon Street white on Tuesday.
SNOW A RARITY IN LOUISIANA
Justin Daffron, chief development officer at Covenant House in New Orleans, said its shelter was operating at full capacity but managing to keep up with demand even though snow emergencies are virtually unknown in Louisiana.
“I think this is different because hurricanes in New Orleans are commonplace, and we are unaccustomed to the severe winter weather,” he said. “It took everyone by surprise because for those of us who have had winter weather here before, it was basically a dusting.”
The storm has killed at least 12 people, including five in Zavala County, Texas, early on Tuesday in a car accident on Highway 57, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. Two other Texas deaths were reportedly caused by exposure to the cold in Austin, officials announced.
Other cold-related deaths were reported in Alabama and Georgia, officials announced.
Some 38 million people across the region were under winter storm and extreme cold warnings on Wednesday, the National Weather Service said, warning people about the dangers of frostbite, hypothermia and road travel.
“These travel impacts may linger for several days given the historic heavy accumulations combined with frigid temperatures, as well as the lack of equipment for clearing roads compared to areas further north,” the service said.
More than 150,000 homes and businesses were without power from Texas east into Georgia and Florida, according to Poweroutage.us. Many schools and local government offices were closed, while many highways across the region were slick, covered with snow and ice.
Airports including Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport were temporarily closed overnight and early on Wednesday, because of the storm, and more than 1,400 flights were canceled in the U.S., many in the southeast and another 1,200 were delayed, according to the tracking site, Flightaware.com.
U.S. liquefied natural gas company Freeport LNG said on Wednesday it closed its export plant in Texas on Jan. 21 due to a power feed problem during the winter storm, and will keep it shut until power supply stabilizes.
The U.S. Northeast was facing another day of frigid cold temperatures. The lowest temperature recorded in the contiguous United States on Wednesday was a harsh -27 degrees Fahrenheit (-32 C) in Davis, West Virginia.
(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta, Brendan O’Brien in Chicago and Marianna Parraga and Georgina McCartney in Houston; Editing by Frank McGurty and Ros Russell)
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