Death Toll Rises from Winter Storm Fern; More Than 800,000 Without Power in Subfreezing Temps

The Northeast is taking the final snowfall from Winter Storm Fern this morning, but the impacts of this monster storm will be felt by millions for much longer.

School and work are canceled for many at the start of this work week, as hundreds of thousands remain without power in temperatures that won't even reach the freezing mark.

The number of deaths is rising, with at least nine deaths blamed on the storm. In Louisiana, two men died of hypothermia, and that was also the cause of death for a woman in Kansas and one of two deaths in Texas.

Survey teams from the National Weather Service will be out today, looking at the damage in Geneva, Alabama to determine if a tornado was truly the cause. A business owner there described the damage and drone footage showed how roofs were torn from some buildings. On Sunday afternoon, the Storm Prediction Center issued a tornado watch for portions of the Southeast, including southern Alabama and Georgia, as well as parts of the Florida Panhandle.

Flight cancellations and delays are rising again this morning, especially in the Northeast where snow is still coming down. More than 4,300 flights have been canceled, according to FlightAware.com, many of them were flights coming out of Boston Logan International and New York’s three major airports: John F. Kennedy Intl., Newark Liberty Intl. and LaGuardia.

LaGuardia reopened this morning after being shut down on Sunday afternoon. Dallas-Fort Worth and Charlotte-Douglas have also canceled more than one hundred flights each so far. At the height of the storm, more than 13,000 flights were canceled.

NOLA Public Schools along with city emergency officials decided to close all schools today due to freezing temperatures. Below is a segment of the official press release.

“Forecasts indicate that temperatures are expected to remain below freezing during the typical morning student arrival period. This prolonged sub-freezing period increases the risk of ice accumulation on roads, sidewalks, and school grounds, creating potentially hazardous conditions for school bus routes, family transportation, and pedestrian safety.”

New Orleans International Airport has already broken the record low of 29 degrees, set back in 1988, this morning. A record cold high of 41 degrees set back in 1966 will also be in jeopardy as high’s struggle to hit 40 degrees today.

The South and East will face several days of record cold. Dozens of records could fall across Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma through Tuesday, as lows drop to the teens and 20s, and highs struggle to make it above freezing for many.

For the hundreds of thousands without power in the South, they are dealing with a bitterly cold morning without heat. While there are about 830,000 customers without power nationwide, Tennessee has the largest chunk of those outages, at nearly 250,000, according to PowerOutage.us. More than 100,000 homes and businesses have lost electricity in Louisiana and Texas.

We recognize the severe impact that current conditions are having on our customers, and we are committed to restoring service levels as quickly as possible. As a result of these weather issues, the ALG Client Service Team will send daily updates as we monitor the progress and track job level.