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 An
abandoned car in Placitas, New Mexico, Tuesday
(CNN)
-- Across the United States, many regions braced for hazardous
weather on Wednesday. Travel warnings were issued for some
southern states, where trees were toppled and downed power
lines left hundreds of thousands without electricity. In
Arkansas, state employees were told to stay home because
of dangerously slick roads.
Arkansas
National Guardsmen were sent out to rescue motorists stranded
during the second big ice storm to hit the state in two
weeks. Abandoned cars hampered efforts to clear roads.
"The
southwest corner is just bloodied," said Jennifer Gordon,
a spokeswoman for the state Emergency Management Department.
"Roads are like skating rinks. It's just catastrophic."
In the
Texas Panhandle, many roads were closed late Tuesday after
more than a foot of snow accumulated. American Airlines
canceled more than 700 flights at Dallas-Fort Worth because
of weather problems elsewhere.
Winter
storm warnings were issued on Tuesday for parts of Missouri
and Tennessee, while special weather statements were issued
for Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Kentucky
and Virginia, describing such local forecasts as sleet or
much colder temperatures.
A winter
storm is possible on Friday in Virginia, a weather service
forecast said Tuesday, with "the potential for heavy
snow."
"Right
now, even though this is preliminary, it will perhaps impact
the mid-Atlantic region, and eventually it could be for
New England and the Canadian Maritimes," said CNN weather
anchor Karen Maginnis. "We won't know the exact track
until we get all the weather elements together."
'You
could hear trees popping'
Four
traffic deaths were blamed on the storm in New Mexico, while
Oklahoma recorded three deaths. Authorities said a traffic
accident on a rain-slicked road in east Texas killed five
people.
In Arkansas,
up to 2 inches of ice covered roads in parts of the state.
The Little Rock National Airport was closed, with runways
covered in ice. The National Weather Service implored people
to avoid driving if possible, and to have winter weather
survival kits in their cars if they had to venture out.
An ice
storm warning remained in effect for parts of Arkansas and
Oklahoma. Freezing temperatures created a blanket of ice
on highways and secondary roads, making driving extremely
dangerous.
"This
system is very slow-moving, so the ice accumulation is remarkably
heavy," Maginnis said. "When we look at ice storms,
we may talk about quarter-of-an-inch or half-inch accumulation.
But to talk about 1, 2 and 3 inches of accumulations is
catastrophic," she said.
Several
communities opened shelters across southern Arkansas after
more than 200,000 homes and businesses lost electricity
because of ice-heavy limbs falling on power lines.
"Going
to sleep last night you could hear trees popping all over
the woods," said Billy Ray McKelvey, managing editor
of the De Queen Daily Citizen newspaper, which was unable
to publish a Tuesday issue.
In Fort
Smith, the 117-year-old Times-Record newspaper, with a circulation
of 42,000, also shut down Tuesday and did not publish a
paper for Wednesday "for the first time ever,"
editor Jack Moseley said.
Texas
authorities closed some highways. "We can't salt the
roads fast enough," said Garza County, Texas, deputy
constable Cliff Laws.
 Motorists
slowly pass fallen tree limbs brought down by ice in Clovis,
New Mexico, Tuesday
More power outages
In Oklahoma, ice on trees and power lines knocked out power
to tens of thousands of people on Tuesday. Emergency crews
in the state had restored electricity to several thousand
people by midmorning, but about 122,500 customers were still
in the dark later in the day.
Ice
on power lines in McAlester, Oklahoma, was almost an inch
thick. City manager Randy Green said power was out to the
city's water system and the town got dangerously low on
water.
Entergy
Arkansas reported about 49,000 customers without power across
the state. More than 60,000 customers had no power in northeastern
Texas, and 34,000 were without power in Louisiana.
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