Winter storm's icy blast hits 200 million in US

Some 200 cardinal Americans are nether a upwind advisory arsenic a monolithic wintertime tempest tightens its icy grip connected the state up of the vacation weekend.

More than 1.5 cardinal radical mislaid powerfulness and thousands of flights were cancelled connected Friday.

So acold astatine slightest 12 deaths linked to the tempest person been confirmed crossed the country.

A weaponry cyclone, erstwhile atmospheric unit plummets, brought blizzard-like conditions to the Great Lakes.

In Canada, Ontario and Quebec were bearing the brunt of the storm, which is causing powerfulness cuts for hundreds of thousands of households.

In the US, the immense tempest spans 2,000 miles (3,200km) from Texas to Maine, and the National Weather Service (NWS) said its Friday representation "depicts 1 of the top extents of wintertime upwind warnings and advisories ever".

Temperatures successful Elk Park, Montana, dropped to -50F (-45C).

Heavy snowfall was forecast successful areas of Pennsylvania and Michigan. Buffalo, New York, was expecting astatine slightest 35in (89cm).

Even the usually milder confederate states of Louisiana, Alabama, Florida and Georgia were taxable to hard-freeze warnings.

A fig of the storm-related fatalities person progressive roadworthy postulation accidents, including a 50-car pile-up successful Ohio that near astatine slightest 1 idiosyncratic dead.

More than 8,000 flights were cancelled connected Friday, reported tracking tract FlightAware, wreaking yet much question chaos arsenic travellers conflict to marque it location for Christmas.

The latest fig for customers without energy crossed the US by Friday evening was 1.2 million, according to PowerOutage.us.

Utilities passim the Tennessee Valley were implementing rolling blackouts to prevention power.

The acold has matched decades-old somesthesia records crossed the US:

New York, West Virginia, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina and Oklahoma person declared states of emergency, portion Wisconsin declared an "energy emergency".

In South Dakota, Native American people members were reportedly burning apparel for warmth aft moving retired of substance and being trapped by monolithic snowfall drifts.

Anna Halverson, who represents the Pass Creek District connected the Pine Ridge Reservation, told the Darsha Dodge Rapid City Journal: "We're successful a truly utmost exigency down here."

"We person drifts arsenic precocious arsenic immoderate houses that agelong 60, 70 yards astatine a time."

She said 1 household ran retired of babe formula, nutrient and substance and spent 4 days trapped wrong earlier walking 8 miles to get assistance due to the fact that their babe was starving.

With stockpiles of wood and propane inaccessible due to the fact that of the whiteout conditions, residents were turning to hopeless measures.

"I've seen crossed the preservation immoderate members were burning apparel successful their wood stove due to the fact that they couldn't get entree to wood," Ms Halverson said.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has activated the state's National Guard to haul firewood from a adjacent nationalist wood to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe and the Oglala Sioux Tribe.