Freezing rain and drizzle is disrupting travel from Central Texas to the Great Lakes, with ice-glazed roads leading to hundreds of traffic accidents, including one in Kentucky that killed a toddler.

Hundreds of flights were canceled Wednesday at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport as Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas braced for an ice storm.

More than half an inch of ice could accumulate in parts of the Ozarks through Friday morning, while another area of freezing rain was expected to hit south-central Pennsylvania and western Maryland, the National Weather Service said.

In western Kentucky, ice on a bridge caused multiple collisions that left a toddler dead and closed interstate lanes for hours, officials said.

Seven collisions involving 12 tractor-trailers and 6 passenger cars were reported beginning late Wednesday on Interstate 24 in Marshall County due to ice on the Tennessee River Bridge, Kentucky State Police said in a statement.

In one crash involving two semi-trailers, an 18-month-old unrestrained child was ejected and then hit by a car, police said. The toddler was declared dead at the scene by the Marshall County coroner.

In Arkansas, dozens of schools were closed or switched to remote learning on Thursday as another round of freezing rain was expected by midday. Airlines canceled more than 1,700 U.S. flights Thursday, according to the FlightAware.com tracking site. Many of them were at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport, where temperatures were expected to top out above freezing only briefly late on Thursday afternoon.

DFW Airport is the biggest in the American Airlines network, and American had canceled 21% of its Thursday flights by Wednesday night, according to FlightAware. Meanwhile, heavy snow was expected in upstate New York and New England later this week, with more than 6 inches possible through Saturday morning.

Winter took a fleeting break in the Northeast on Wednesday, with temperatures soaring into the 60s before plunging within hours. The warm spell sent people streaming outdoors, but it was bad news for ski resorts.

"It's not exactly what you want to see in the middle of the busiest week of the year," said Ethan Austin, spokesperson for the Sugarloaf ski area in Maine, which was busy because of school vacation week. But he was happy to hear snow was on the way.

The weather whiplash marked the second time in less than a week that there was to be a temperature swing of more than 40 degrees in 24 hours.

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BUTLER COUNTY, Ohio —

Icy road conditions caused a real mess for drivers Thursday morning.

Hours later, folks continued to face challenges during the commute home and while running errands.

Milder temperatures and lots of rain took over in areas like Butler County.

The wet weather made it difficult to anticipate what was ahead while behind the wheel.

"The little further than you can see it's kind of misty until you get there," Springboro resident Lori Holzhauser said.

Holzhauser said it's hard to make out the different lanes on the roads.

"If the lines aren't on the street, then it's a little difficult," Holzhauser said.

ODOT crews are were making rounds again Thursday night.

They'll be out working long hours once the weather changes, and more ice begins to form.

Joy White said her commute to work today was a little concerning.

"Just that I had to be careful especially on the overpasses where it had gotten a little icy and it was a little slick," White said.

She's protecting her car from the elements so that she's ready to go in the morning.

"I won't have to hopefully brush anything off in the morning," White said.

From the Rockies to New England, an expansive system is dumping snow and creating an ice storm that brought dangerous conditions from Arkansas through Ohio.

The messy winter storm turned deadly, prompting treacherous road conditions as more than 85 million Americans are under winter weather warnings or advisories Friday.

Trucks and cars were at a standstill in northwest Kentucky. Near Houston, Texas, at least ten vehicles were involved in a pile-up after skidding across an icy roadway, making a travel nightmare for drivers near San Antonio.

A woman there said she was stuck on an interstate for more than 12 hours as police declared the road "not drivable." As of Friday afternoon, ice-covered and downed power lines left more than 300,000 customers without electricity. Nearly half of those outages were reported in Tennessee.

In New Mexico, authorities say two people died in weather-related crashes as more than three feet of snow piled up. In Alabama, one person was killed after the storm spun up a likely tornado, leaving several others injured. Forecasters say the severe weather there was on the warm side of the winter storm.  

In Memphis, a doorbell camera captured the moment a tree limb snapped under the weight of the ice. The National Weather Service is encouraging people to stay home as officials reported crash-after-crash on interstates. 

New York City and Boston are under a winter weather advisory until 7 p.m. tonight for freezing rain and sleet. Both cities were hit hard by heavy snow during last week's powerful nor'easter and could experience ice piling up to a tenth of an inch.

This story was originally published by Maura Sirianni of Newsy.

Severe winter weather that has spread across the United States this week could cause delays with your packages. 

FedEx's Memphis, Tennessee headquarters is under an ice storm warning as the company tries to avoid any disruptions in deliveries.

The company says it's keeping an eye on the weather, but the safety of employees comes first.

FedEx released a service statement on its website which said, "FedEx Express experienced substantial disruptions at the Memphis and Indianapolis hubs last night due to freezing rain in the Memphis area and snow in the Indianapolis area. The storm has created potentially hazardous operating conditions and the safety of our team members remains our number one priority. Potential delays are possible for package deliveries across the U.S. with a delivery commitment of February 3, 2022. Contingency plans are in place and we are prepared to provide the best possible service as conditions allow. Operational impacts to other FedEx operating companies may vary due to local weather conditions."

A major winter storm has left more than 200,000 homes and businesses without power across the U.S. The multiday storm dumped more than a foot of snow in parts of the Midwest and triggered weather warnings from Texas to the Northeast. Power companies have struggled to keep pace with freezing rain and snow that weighed down tree limbs and encrusted power lines.

Travelers also are dealing with thousands of canceled flights around the U.S. The storm's path stretched further from the central U.S. on Thursday into more of the South and Northeast. Forecasters say more heavy snow is expected, while heavy ice buildup was likely from Texas to Pennsylvania.

This story was originally published by Dave Briggs of Newsy. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

CHICAGO —

A major winter storm that already cut electric power to about 350,000 homes and businesses from Texas to the Ohio Valley was set to leave Pennsylvania and New England glazed in ice and smothered in snow Friday, forecasters said.

A foot of snow was expected to accumulate in northern New York and northern New England, but it was the ice that threatened to wreak havoc on travel and electric service in the Northeast before the storm heads out to sea late Friday and Saturday, said Rick Otto, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland.

“Snow is a lot easier to plow than ice,” he said.

Even after the storm pushes off to sea late Friday and Saturday, ice and snow were expected to linger through the weekend because of subfreezing temperatures, Otto said.

About 350,000 homes and businesses lost power from Texas to Ohio on Thursday as freezing rain and snow weighed down tree limbs and encrusted power lines, part of a winter storm that caused a deadly tornado in Alabama, dumped more than a foot of snow in parts of the Midwest and brought rare measurable snowfall and hundreds of power outages to parts of Texas.

The highest totals of power outages blamed on icy or downed power lines were concentrated in Tennessee, Arkansas, Texas and Ohio, but the path of the storm stretched further from the South and Northeast on Thursday. Several schools and universities across the region closed on Friday as a result of poor weather conditions.

Along the warmer side of the storm, strong thunderstorms capable of damaging wind gusts and tornadoes were possible Thursday in parts of Mississippi and Alabama, the Storm Prediction Center said.

In western Alabama, a tornado that hit a rural area Thursday afternoon killed one person, a female he found under rubble, and critically injured three others. A home was heavily damaged.

Tornadoes in the winter are unusual but possible, and scientists have said the atmospheric conditions needed to cause a tornado have intensified as the planet warms.

Heavy snow the storm brought to Midwestern states isn't unusual, except the bigger-than-normal path of intense snow in some places, said Northern Illinois University meteorology professor Victor Gensini. With a warmer climate, people are forgetting what a Midwestern winter had long been like, he said.

"The only amazing winters I've been able to experience is through my parents' photographs of the 1970s," Gensini, who is 35, said. "This (storm) is par for the course, not only for the past, but winters current."

More than 20 inches of snow was reported in the southern Rockies, while more than a foot of snow fell in areas of Illinois, Indiana and Michigan.

The flight-tracking service FlightAware.com showed more than 9,000 flights in the U.S. scheduled for Thursday or Friday had been canceled, on top of more than 2,000 cancellations Wednesday as the storm began.

"Unfortunately, we are looking at enough ice accumulations that we will be looking at significant travel impacts," Orrison said.

At Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, an American Airlines hub, an estimated 700 customers stayed Wednesday night in its terminals, according to an airport statement. Airport personnel provided pillows, blankets, diapers and infant formula to the marooned travelers. Airport officials said in the same statement that on Thursday night "we are ready to provide assistance in anticipation of customers who may need to stay in the terminals."

The Ohio Valley was especially affected Thursday, with 211 flight cancellations at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport on Thursday. An airport spokeswoman told the Cincinnati Enquirer that all flights were canceled Thursday except for Delta Air Lines and American Airlines flights before noon.

Nearly all Thursday afternoon and evening flights were canceled at the Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport, and Friday flights could be as well, spokeswoman Natalie Chaudoin told the Louisville Courier-Journal. UPS suspended some operations Thursday at its Worldport hub at the airport, a rare move.

Almost 300,000 homes and businesses were still without power as night fell Thursday, most of them in Tennessee and Ohio, according to the website poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports. As night fell Thursday, almost 150,000 Tennessee customers were without power, including about 135,000 in the Memphis area alone — or one-third of the customers of Memphis Light, Gas & Water.

Power restoration could take days, said Gale Carson, the utility's spokeswoman. "It's not going to be a quick process," she said.

Six people were taken to a hospital after a 16-vehicle crash on a Memphis highway. Two were in critical condition when taken to an emergency room after the crash on Austin Peay Highway, the Memphis Fire Department said on Twitter. Four others suffered non-critical injuries.

Trees sagged under the weight of ice in Memphis, resulting in fallen tree limbs and branches. Parked cars had a layer of ice on them and authorities in several communities around the city warned of some cars sliding off slick roadways.

Meantime, almost 70,000 were without power in Ohio, with large percentages of the population in southeastern Ohio in the dark.

In Texas, the return of subfreezing weather brought heightened anxiety nearly a year after February 2021's catastrophic freeze that buckled the state's power grid for days, leading to hundreds of deaths in one of the worst blackouts in U.S. history.

Facing a new test of Texas' grid, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said it was holding up and on track to have more than enough power to get through the storm. Texas had about 70,000 outages by Thursday morning, nowhere close to the 4 million outages reported in 2021. About half had their power restored by evening.

Abbott and local officials said Thursday's outages were due to high winds or icy and downed transmission lines, not grid failures.

In Dallas, where snow rarely accumulates, the overnight mix of snow and freezing rain had hardened Thursday afternoon into an icy slick that made roads perilous.

South Bend, Indiana, reported a record snowfall for the date on Wednesday with 11.2 inches, eclipsing the previous record of 8 inches set on the date in 1908, said Hannah Carpenter, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service's office in Syracuse, Indiana.

Once the storm pushes through, she said temperatures will see a big drop, with Friday's highs mostly in the upper teens followed by lows in the single digits in northern Indiana, along with bone-chilling wind chills.

"It's definitely not going to be melting real quick here," Carpenter said Thursday morning.

The frigid temperatures settled into areas after the snowy weather, with Kansas residents awakening to dangerous wind chills of around 15 below zero. In New Mexico, schools and nonessential government services were closed in some areas Thursday because of icy and snow-packed roads.

The disruptive storm began Tuesday and moved across the central U.S. on Wednesday's Groundhog Day, the same day the famed groundhog Punxsutawney Phil predicted six more weeks of winter. The storm came on the heels of a nor'easter last weekend that brought blizzard conditions to many parts of the East Coast.

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Bleed reported from Little Rock, Arkansas. Associated Press writers Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; Paul J. Weber in Austin; Jake Bleiberg in Dallas; Paul Davenport in Albuquerque, New Mexico; Seth Borenstein in Kensington, Maryland; Rick Callahan in Indianapolis and Jay Reeves in Alabaster, Alabama, contributed to this report.

NORFOLK, Va. —

A layer of ice and a blanket of snow covered coastal areas stretching from South Carolina to Virginia Saturday after a winter weather system brought colder temperatures and precipitation not often seen in the region.

Authorities urged drivers to stay off the roads and highways, which forecasters said are slick and snow-packed in the storm's aftermath. They also warned of black ice.

Temperatures were cold for the Southeast states. Meteorologists said they likely won’t rise above the 30s in Virginia and much of North Carolina during the day and will drop into the 20s and even teens in some places on Saturday night.

By about 7 a.m. Saturday, the storm had mostly blown off the Atlantic Coast, leaving as much as six inches of snow in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, meteorologists said.

"The snow has stopped, the sun is up, temps remain below freezing and roads remain hazardous to motorists. Stay home and avoid travel today," the Virginia Department of Transportation tweeted on Saturday morning.

Further south, there was ice in parts of coastal North Carolina, which stretched along much of the South Carolina coast as well, although in much smaller amounts.

"There was basically a glaze reported as far south as Charleston," said Carl Morgan, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wilmington. "We’re talking less than a 10th of an inch of freezing rain."

The snowfall in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina mirrored the forecast of 4 to 6 inches, said Mike Montefusco, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Wakefield, Virginia. He said Saturday's cold temperatures would keep the snow from melting at least until Sunday, when temperatures were expected to reach the 40s.

The snow prompted some restaurants along the touristy Virginia Beach oceanfront to close on Saturday. But two eateries, Commune and Prosperity Kitchen, opened their doors in the hopes that people would brave a walk from nearby residential neighborhoods.

"We've had storms like this in the past, and either we're completely dead or super busy because everyone just wants to get out in the snow and have a fun day," said Kevin Jamison, who owns both restaurants.

Jamison said customers were already trickling in Saturday morning.

"Just to be in a nice, cozy cafe and getting coffee — there’s something romantic about that," Jamison added. "And I think maybe other people are feeling the same way."

But further south, the ice in the Carolinas has already caused headaches for many.

About 4,500 had lost power in coastal South Carolina on Friday night, including in Myrtle Beach. But most were back online Saturday morning, according to utility Santee Cooper.

The number of North Carolina power outages during the storm peaked at about 16,000 at 4 a.m. Saturday, and had dropped by midmorning to about 4,000, with most located in Onslow and Carteret counties, according to Gov. Roy Cooper’s office.

In coastal Onslow County, North Carolina, officials said that several highway bridges remained closed Saturday morning, and urged drivers to stay off even the ones that are open.

"All bridges in Onslow County are hazardous to traverse, even the ones that aren’t closed to traffic," the county government said in a Facebook post.

Cooper's office said North Carolina's Highway Patrol troopers have responded to more than 1,500 calls for service. There also were 945 collisions in affected areas since Friday afternoon.

Cooper's office said a majority of those calls were related to vehicles sliding off the roadway and becoming stuck or single vehicle collisions.

On Friday night, a Delta Air Lines plane with 19 passengers on board skidded off the runway and rolled into mud while taxiing at North Carolina’s snowy Raleigh-Durham International Airport, according to airport officials. No injuries were reported aboard the flight from Washington, D.C.

Earlier that day, an ambulance transporting a patient near Raleigh slid off an icy road, injuring two workers aboard, according to North Carolina’s state Highway Patrol. The patient died after the crash, but the cause of death hasn’t been confirmed.

The roads were still sketchy Saturday morning in North Carolina's Morehead City, according to Josh Turbeville, who owns The Banks Grill.

Turbeville said the breakfast-and-lunch spot lost power overnight and only got it back midmorning. He had already decided on Friday to close the restaurant on Saturday.

And while closing down is a headache, he said it could be worse.

"I’d rather do it now in the offseason than in the middle of summer," Turbeville said. "We’re all so short-staffed that a day off is not hurting anybody’s feelings."

Ryan Willis, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Atlanta office, said Saturday that there was a light accumulation of snow in eastern Georgia, including the Athens area and surrounding counties.

"There were no major totals, maybe about ¼ inch of snow to about an inch in the heaviest spots," he said.

Willis described the snow in the area as rare, but not unusual.

"It’s more of a bit of a novelty," he said. "There’s just enough on the ground to maybe make a couple of snowballs."

Willis said the overnight accumulation would melt by the afternoon and, though temperatures will be well down in the 20s later Saturday, no additional snow or wintry precipitation is expected to accompany the winter blast.

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Associated Press writers Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina; Jonathan Drew in Durham, North Carolina; and Chevel Johnson in New Orleans contributed to this report.

A dangerous winter storm was bringing significant snowfall, strong thunderstorms and blustery winds to the northeastern U.S. on Monday.

A foot of snow was forecast for parts of New England, New York state, Ohio and Pennsylvania through Tuesday morning.

Forecasters in Buffalo, New York, said the snow was falling fast.

“WOW! (Latest) snow measurement at 1 a.m. was 4.6 inches in the last hour at the Buffalo Airport!” the National Weather Service in Buffalo tweeted overnight. “And tack on another 4 inches in the last hour ending at 2 a.m.! Total so far since late Sun evening - 10.2 inches.”

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New York City and Boston were spared the heaviest snowfall, which was accumulating at higher elevations in western Massachusetts, eastern Pennsylvania and parts of New England. A severe thunderstorm warning remained in effect for New York City early Monday, and high winds made travel treacherous across the region.

“We’ve had a very strong area of low pressure that’s kind of moved up the coast, with pretty heavy snowfall accumulations from Tennessee, North Carolina all the way into the northeast,” said meteorologist Marc Chenard at the weather service’s headquarters in College Park, Maryland.

The highest snowfall accumulations so far have been in the North Carolina mountains, at over a foot, Chenard said. “The bigger cities — New York, Boston — it's warmed up, it's rain there,” he said.

Forecasters said wind gusts in the major city could top out around 45 mph, and around 60 mph on Long Island.

The howling winds spread a fire that destroyed a motel and two other structures in coastal Salisbury, Massachusetts, early Monday.

Sleet and rain were the main threats for much of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island. Periods of snowfall transitioned to rain overnight. NWS meteorologists in Boston said wind gusts could reach 70 mph.

The massive winter system brought similar conditions to the Southeast on Sunday. Multiple states reported inches of snow, and severe thunderstorms in Florida spun up a tornado with 118 mph winds. Thirty mobile homes were destroyed and 51 had major damage. Three minor injuries were reported.

Wet roadways in the South were expected to refreeze Monday, creating icy conditions for motorists.

Plow trucks were scattered along roads and highways up the East Coast, working to clear the way for travelers. Some crashes were reported in the early morning hours.

This weekend, more than 50 million Americans could be affected by winter weather as a major snowstorm is forecasted to blanket the upper Midwest to the East Coast.

That's according to the National Weather Service, which has issued a winter storm watch from Saturday until Monday, which could bring a mess of snow, ice, and wind.

Residents in North Dakota, down to northern Georgia, and up to Maine will be affected.

According to The Weather Channel, parts of northern North Dakota have already seen anywhere between 6 to 12 inches of snow, and parts of western Minnesota and North Iowa see 4 to 7 inches.

The NWS says those in the Midwest and the Middle Mississippi Valley will see about 8 to 12 inches of snow beginning Friday.

AccuWeather projects traveling will be a headache as disruptions are expected.

A sprawling blast of winter weather across the U.S. is likely to blame for the deaths of two people in Texas, where an unusually snowy emergency Monday knocked out power for more than four million people, shut down grocery stores and air travel and closed schools ahead of frigid days still to come.

As nightfall threatened to plummet temperatures again into single digits, officials warned that homes still without power would likely not have heat until at least Tuesday, as frustration mounted and the state's electric grid came under growing demand and criticism.

“Things will likely get worse before they get better," said Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the top elected official in the county of nearly 5 million people around Houston.

Law enforcement reported two men were found dead along Houston-area roadways. Causes of death were pending, but officials said the subfreezing temperatures were likely to blame.

The toll of the worsening conditions included the delivery of new COVID-19 vaccine shipments, which were expected to be delayed until at least midweek. Massive power outages across Houston included a facility storing 8,000 doses of Moderna vaccine, leaving health officials scrambling to find takers at the same time authorities were pleading for people to stay home.

Temperatures nosedived into the single-digits as far south as San Antonio, and homes that had already been without electricity for hours had no certainty about when the lights and heat would come back on, as the state's overwhelmed power grid began imposing blackouts that are typically only seen in 100-degree Fahrenheit summers.

The storm was part of a massive system that brought snow, sleet and freezing rain to the southern Plains and was spreading across the Ohio Valley and to the Northeast. The Southwest Power Pool, a group of utilities across 14 states, called for rolling outages because the supply of reserve energy had been exhausted. Some utilities said they were starting blackouts, while others urged customers to reduce power usage.

“We're living through a really historic event going on right now,” said Jason Furtado, a professor of meteorology at the University of Oklahoma, pointing to all of Texas under a winter storm warning and the extent of the freezing temperatures.

State officials said surging demand, driven by people trying to keep their homes warm, and cold weather knocking some power stations offline had pushed Texas' system beyond the limits.

“This weather event, it's really unprecedented. We all living here know that," said Dan Woodfin, senior director of system operations at the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. He defended preparations made by grid operators and described the demand on the system as record-setting.

“This event was well beyond the design parameters for a typical, or even an extreme, Texas winter that you would normally plan for. And so that is really the result that we're seeing," Woodfin said.

More than 500 people were hunkering down at one shelter in Houston, but Mayor Sylvester Turner said other warming centers had to be shut down because those locations, too, lost power.

The largest grocery store chain in Texas, H-E-B, closed locations around Austin and San Antonio, cities that are unaccustomed to snow and have few resources to clear roads. The slow thaw and more frigid lows ahead was also taking a toll on Texas' distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.

State health officials said Texas, which was due to receive more than 400,000 additional vaccine doses this week, now does not expect deliveries to occur until at least Wednesday.

The weather also put existing vaccine supply in jeopardy. Rice University on Monday abruptly began offering vaccines on its closed Houston campus after Harris Health System told the school it had about 1,000 vaccines that “were going to go to waste," said Doug Miller, a university spokesman.

“The window was just a couple hours. They have to take care of it quickly,” Miller said.

Harris County officials said a facility storing the vaccines had lost power Monday and that a backup generator also failed. Hidalgo said she did not believe any vaccines were lost.

Caught without enough groceries on hand, Lauren Schneider, a 24-year-old lab technician, walked to a Dallas grocery store near her home Monday morning dressed in a coat, hat and face mask. Schneider said she didn’t feel comfortable driving with the roads covered in snow and ice. She said she hadn’t seen a serious snowfall in Dallas since her childhood.

“I really didn’t think it’s would be this serious,” Schneider said.

Teresa and Luke Fassetta, trundling through the snow carrying grocery bags, said the store lost power while they were shopping. The couple said they lost power overnight, then got it back around 9 a.m., and they were hoping it would still be on when they arrived home. If not, Teresa said, “we just have a bunch of blankets and candles and two cats to keep us warm.”

Several cities in the U.S. saw record lows as Arctic air remained over the central part of the country. In Minnesota, the Hibbing/Chisholm weather station registered minus 38 degrees Fahrenheit, while Sioux Falls, South Dakota, dropped to minus 26 Fahrenheit.

In Kansas, where wind chills dropped to as low as minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit in some areas, Gov. Laura Kelly declared a state of disaster.

Most government offices and schools were closed for Presidents Day, and authorities pleaded with residents to stay home. Louisiana State Police reported that it had investigated nearly 75 weather-related crashes caused by a mixture of snow, sleet and freezing rain in the past 24 hours.

“We already have some accidents on our roadways,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said during a morning news conference. “It is slick and it is dangerous.”

Air travel was also affected. By midmorning, 3,000 flights had been canceled across the country, about 1,600 of them at Dallas/Fort Worth International and Bush Intercontinental airports in Texas. At DFW, the temperature was 4 degrees Fahrenheit — 3 degrees colder than Moscow.

In Houston, officials said Bush Intercontinental Airport runways would remain closed until at least 1 p.m. Tuesday, a day longer than previously expected.

The storm arrived over a three-day holiday weekend that has seen the most U.S. air travel since the period around New Year’s. More than 1 million people went through airport security checkpoints on Thursday and Friday. However, that was still less than half the traffic of a year ago, before the pandemic hit with full force.

The southern Plains had been gearing up for the winter weather for the better part of the weekend. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for all of the state’s 254 counties. Abbott, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson each activated National Guard units to assist state agencies with tasks including rescuing stranded drivers.

President Joe Biden also declared an emergency in Texas in a statement Sunday night. The declaration is intended to add federal aid to state and local response efforts.

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Bleiberg reported from Dallas. Associated Press journalists David Koenig in Dallas, Juan A. Lozano in Houston, Rebecca Reynolds Yonker in Louisville, Ky., Kate Brumback in Atlanta, Margaret Stafford in Liberty, Mo., and Amy Forliti in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON —

Add Mother Nature to the pile of crises on President Joe Biden's plate.

A month into the job and focused on the coronavirus, Biden is seeing his disaster management skills tested after winter storms plunged Texas, Oklahoma and neighboring states into an unusual deep freeze that left millions shivering in homes that lost heat and power, and in many homes, water.

At least 69 deaths across the U.S. have been blamed on the blast of unseasonable weather.

The White House announced on Saturday that the president had declared a major disaster in Texas, and he has asked federal agencies to identify additional resources to address the suffering.

Biden came into office Jan. 20 promising to tackle a series of brewing crises, starting with the coronavirus pandemic and its ripple effects on the economy. He tacked on systemic racism and climate change as top priorities. And now he's contending with storms that have not only imperiled Americans but also delayed the shipment and administration of millions of doses of coronavirus vaccines.

Biden said Friday that he hopes to travel to Texas next week but doesn't want his presence and the accompanying presidential entourage to distract from the recovery.

“They're working like the devil to take care of their folks,” Biden said of Texas officials. He said he'd make a decision early next week about travel.

Biden, who offered himself during the campaign as the experienced and empathetic candidate the nation needed at this moment in time, is working on several fronts to address the situation — and to avoid repeating the mistakes of predecessors who got tripped up by inadequate or insensitive responses in times of disaster.

Part of the job of being president is responding to the destruction left behind by earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes and other natural disasters, or events like deadly mass shootings, or even acts of terrorism.

Some have handled such situations better than others.

George W. Bush earned praise for his leadership after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks but stumbled during his administration’s halting response to the humanitarian disaster that unfolded in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast four years later.

Barack Obama said he should have anticipated the blowback he got for going to the golf course right after he condemned the beheading of a kidnapped American journalist by Islamist militants in 2014. Obama was vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard at the time.

Donald Trump was criticized for tossing rolls of paper towels into a crowd of people in Puerto Rico who had endured Hurricane Maria’s pummeling of the island in 2017. He defended tossing the towels, saying the people were “having fun.”

Bill Clinton, who famously claimed during the 1992 presidential campaign that “I feel your pain,” was a natural at connecting with disaster victims.

Just this week, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas showed how quickly one bad move during a crisis can become a public relations disaster for a politician.

Cruz came under attack for traveling to Mexico while his constituents suffered without power, heat and running water. His explanation — that his daughters pushed for the getaway because they were out of school — was particularly panned. Cruz later said the trip was a mistake.

Biden has tweeted about Texas and the other affected states, while the White House has issued numerous statements aimed at demonstrating that the federal government is in command of the situation. The president is getting regular updates from his staff and already declared states of emergency in Texas, Oklahoma and Louisiana — adding the disaster designation announced Saturday for Texas.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has shipped dozens of generators and supplies, including fuel, water, blankets and ready-to-eat meals, to the affected areas.

Biden has spoken to the governors of the seven states most affected by the winter weather. He tweeted a photo of himself on the phone with Republican Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas.

Oklahoma’s Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, a staunch supporter of Trump's, was quick to praise Biden for swift action on a disaster declaration.

After speaking with Biden by telephone earlier this week, Stitt specifically thanked the president for “taking the time to reach out this afternoon and offer the federal government’s help for Oklahomans. We had a very productive call and I look forward to working together to find solutions as we recover from this historic storm.”

Barbara Perry, director of presidential studies at the University of Virginia's Miller Center, said Biden is “well-suited" to deal with the disaster because of his decades of service in the U.S. Senate and as a former vice president and because of “his genuine concern for people.”

“He's got to show empathy right off the bat,” Perry said in an interview. “It's important for a president to go to a place that’s been battered, but be careful about the footprint. He doesn’t want to make things worse.”

Biden, should he decide to visit Texas next week, could also use the trip to press his point that climate change is real and must not go unaddressed, and that the state could do things like winterize its power plants to be better prepared for future storms, Perry said.

But he should take care to not do so in a scolding kind of way.

“We know he cares about climate change, and this is a way to convince people,” Perry said.

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Associated Press writer Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.