Snowstorm, deep freeze leaves 4 dead in US South

A winter storm that caused at least four deaths in the US South brought record low temperatures on Wednesday to parts of the region, where it coated roads with ice, snapped power lines and prompted public school closures.

Frigid temperatures and snow were also forecast for the mid-Atlantic region and much of New England through Thursday. The National Weather Service issued winter weather advisories and storm warnings for northern Georgia into Virginia and from Massachusetts to Maine.

In Austin, Texas, a vehicle plunged more than 9 meters off a frozen overpass late on Tuesday, killing a man in his 40s, Austin-Travis County Emergency Medical Service said on its Twitter feed.

An 82-year-old woman who suffered from dementia was found dead on Wednesday behind her Houston-area home, likely the victim of exposure to the cold, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said.

In Georgia, two people were fatally struck by a car that slid on an ice patch near Macon, local media said.

At Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the nation’s busiest with a typical volume of 2,700 arrivals and departures a day, about 470 flights had been canceled by Wednesday afternoon, according to tracking service Flightaware.com.

The sheriff’s office in Oconee County, Georgia, east of Atlanta, tried humor to keep people off icy roads.