Millions of people in the United States have been left without electricity after one of the worst snowstorms in years swept across the east of the country.
At least 22 deaths have been blamed on the storm since it blew over the southern Plains earlier this week.
Deaths blamed on the storm included six in Kentucky, one in Tennessee, four in North Carolina, four in Missouri, two in Arkansas, two in South Carolina, two in Virginia and one in New York. Both North Carolina and South Carolina have declared states of emergency.
About 3,000 stranded travellers spent the night at North Carolina's Charlotte-Douglas airport. Travellers also faced cancellations and long delays at New York's LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark, New Jersey, airports.
On the ground, road traffic slowed to a crawl or stalled behind wrecks. Commuter buses ran behind schedule. And commuter railways in the New York city region added extra trains to cope with an increase in riders.
"It is horrible out there," said Errol Carter, a New Jersey lawyer. "I live less than 10 minutes from the train station, and I almost got in two accidents on the way there."
"We have got wrecks everywhere," Virginia State Police Sergeant DA Shaver said.
Schools closed in parts of the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, Delaware, New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky.
The Carolinas were the hardest hit as the weight of ice and snow snapped tree limbs and sent them crashing onto power lines. In Raleigh, North Carolina, the crack of buckling pines and oaks sounded like gunfire during hunting season.
AP