Situation in US South grows more dire after days of ice, frigid temperatures and widespread outages

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi dispatchers are fielding desperate calls for medication or oxygen from people stuck in their homes. Troopers in Tennessee are fanning out for welfare checks on those who haven’t been heard from in days. And in at least one rural area, officials have resorted to using trucks typically used for battling wildfires to transport patients to hospitals.

It could be days before power is restored across the South, where more subfreezing temperatures are expected by Friday in areas unaccustomed to and ill-equipped for such cold. The situation is reaching a breaking point for the elderly and those with medical conditions who lack electricity, some of whom are trapped by roads made impassable by ice and fallen trees.

Nancy Dillon, 87, spent three days without power on her family farm in the rural outskirts of Nashville, relying on her fireplace for warmth. When her phone battery started dying and her back-up battery pack stopped working, she said she became “alarmed.”

"If I were to fall, if I were to need somebody, there would be no way to get help,” she said, adding that electricity was restored on Tuesday night.

The growing misery and anxiety comes amid what Mississippi officials say is the state’s worst winter storm in more than 30 years. About 60 warming centers were opened across a state known as one of the nation’s poorest. But for some communities, they are not enough.

Hal Ferrell, mayor of Batesville, said Wednesday that no one in the city has power and, with roads still slippery with ice, it’s too soon to begin recovery efforts.

“We’re at a real mess and warming centers just don’t exist for 7,500 people,” Ferrell said.

Roughly 298,000 homes and businesses remained without power Wednesday night, the vast majority of them are in Tennessee and Mississippi.

At least 70 people have died across the U.S. in states afflicted by the dangerous cold.

In Hardin County, Tennessee, at the Mississippi state line, LaRae Sliger, the county’s emergency management director, said while people were prepared to manage a couple of days without power, they can’t go much longer without help.

“They’re cold, they don’t have power, they don’t have heat, they’re out of propane, they’re out of wood, they’re out of kerosene for their kerosene heaters,” she said.

More than 96,000 outages remained in Nashville, Tennessee, where downed trees and snapped power lines blocked access to some areas. Utility workers will need at least the weekend, if not longer, to finish restoring power, said Brent Baker, a Nashville Electric Service vice president.

Forecasters say the subfreezing weather will persist in the eastern U.S. into February, with a new influx of arctic air arriving this weekend. There’s a growing chance for heavy snow in the Carolinas and Virginia.

The National Weather Service said chances of additional, significant snowfall are low in places like Nashville, but weekend temperatures will reach dangerously low single digits with wind chills below zero.

Mississippi dispatched 135 snowplows and National Guard troops equipped with wreckers to sections of Interstates 55 and 22 gridlocked by vehicles abandoned in the state’s ice-stricken northern region.

Cars and semitrucks trying to navigate the frozen highways single-file began getting stuck Tuesday. No injuries were reported, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety said.

Erik Lipsett in Benton County, Mississippi, spent the last several days scooping ice from the front yard so he can melt it to flush down his toilets. The area has been without water and power since the weekend.

On Wednesday morning, he lined up at a nearby gas station to shower and said that propane bottles, canisters and hookups for heaters are hard to come by.

Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia. Martin reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writers Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee; Jeff Amy and Charlotte Kramon in Atlanta; Jonathan Mattise and Travis Loller in Nashville, Tennessee; Hallie Golden in Seattle; and Sarah Brumfield in Washington contributed to this report.

A tree blocks the road days after an ice storm in Nashville, Tenn., on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Travis Loller)

Utility trucks are seen through ice covered trees Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2026, in Nashville, Tenn. after a winter storm passed through area over the weekend. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)

This image taken from a video released by the city of Oxford, Miss., shows crews working on power lines Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. (City of Oxford Mississippi via AP)

This image taken from a video released by the city of Oxford, Miss., shows crews working on power lines Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. (City of Oxford Mississippi via AP)

A man was arrested after repeatedly crashing his car into the Chabad Lubavitch world headquarters in New York City on Wednesday night while people were gathered for prayer at the deeply revered Hasidic Jewish site.

No one was injured when the driver struck a door of a building in the complex before reversing and striking it several more times. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said that while it was too early in the investigation to speculate on the driver's motives, the incident was being investigated as a possible hate crime.

“This is deeply alarming, especially given the deep meaning and the history of the institution to so many in New York and around the world,” said New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who called the crash “intentional."

Video of the crash that was posted online shows a car with New Jersey license plates moving forward and backward on an icy driveway leading to a building in the complex and ramming its basement-level doors.

The driver, who is wearing shorts, emerges, shouts to bystanders that “It slipped” and says something to police about trying to park.

Chabad Lubavitch spokesperson Motti Seligson said some of the doors were damaged in the crash.

The Chabad Lubavitch headquarters and synagogue in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood receives thousands of visitors annually. Its Gothic Revival facade is very recognizable to adherents of the Chabad movement and has inspired dozens of replicas across the world.

Commonly referred to as 770, a nod to the Eastern Parkway address of the complex’s original building, the headquarters encompasses multiple adjacent structures.

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez called the crash “disturbing and unacceptable.”

“This could have been much worse and I’m grateful that no one was hurt," he said in a post on social platform X. "My office is working closely with the NYPD to ensure justice is done and the community is safe.”

Neither bombs nor any other weapons were found in the car that hit the building, according to Tisch. She said it was also too early in the investigation to comment on the driver's mental state.

The incident happened on the 75th anniversary of the date that Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson became the leader of the Lubavitch movement. Schneerson died in 1994 but remains a revered figure globally.

There has been a near constant police presence around 770 Eastern Parkway for years.

The site was at the epicenter of the Crown Heights riots in 1991, when Black residents of the neighborhood attacked Jews after a child was killed by a car traveling in Schneerson's motorcade. In 2014, a disturbed man entered the synagogue and stabbed a rabbinical student, wounding him, before being shot dead by police.

FILE - A man passes the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, April 7, 2020 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)