At least 25 people have died as a colossal winter storm swept across large parts of the United States, piling up heavy snow in the Northeast and leaving lingering destruction in the South, where freezing rain knocked out power to hundreds of thousands.The storm’s tail end brought fresh snowfall across the Northeast on Monday, with more than a foot of snow stretching across a 1,300-mile swath from Arkansas to New England, as cited by AP.Light to moderate snowfall was expected to continue across New England through Monday evening.Travel was severely disrupted, flights were cancelled and schools shut as deep snow and bitter cold took hold. The National Weather Service said areas north of Pittsburgh recorded up to 20 inches of snow, with wind chills plunging to minus 25 degrees Fahrenheit late Monday into Tuesday.Authorities reported deaths linked to snowplough accidents in Massachusetts and Ohio, sledding incidents in Arkansas and Texas, and exposure-related cases, including eight people found dead outdoors in New York City during the frigid weekend.More than 700,000 customers were still without electricity on Monday, with Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas among the worst affected states.The Nashville Electric Service, the hardest-hit utility in the country, according to poweroutage.us, said it will “double its workforce by midday on Monday, with nearly 300 line workers deployed across our service area,” as cited by ABC News. Parts of Mississippi were struggling to recover on Monday after what officials described as the state’s worst ice storm since 1994, as authorities rushed to supply cots, blankets, bottled water and generators to warming centres in the hardest-hit areas.At the University of Mississippi, most students remained without power, prompting the cancellation of classes for the entire week. The Oxford campus was still encased in ice, making conditions hazardous. Oxford Mayor Robyn Tannehill said on social media that the scale of damage was so extensive that “it looks like a tornado went down every street,” with fallen trees, limbs and power lines strewn across the city.New York City recorded its heaviest snowfall in years, with 11 inches (28 centimetres) blanketing Central Park. While most main roads were largely cleared by Monday morning, pedestrians struggled through snow-covered sidewalks, and several subway lines with above-ground tracks experienced delays.Air travel was also severely disrupted, with more than 8,000 flight delays and cancellations reported across the United States on Monday, according to flight tracker FlightAware. The situation was even worse a day earlier, when 45 per cent of US flights were cancelled, the highest rate of cancellations since the COVID-19 pandemic, data from aviation analytics firm Cirium showed.
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