The death toll from powerful winter storms in the central and eastern United States has risen to at least 14, officials said, after floods, gale-force winds, and bitterly cold temperatures swept the region.
The National Weather Service (NWS) warned of a winter storm system carrying arctic air that would cause “record cold,” with wind chill expected to hit as low as -51 degrees Celsius in Montana and North Dakota.
The death toll in Kentucky has now risen to 12,” said Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear in a social media post on Monday, raising the toll from eight a day earlier.
West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey said his state had also seen at least one death from the weather.
In addition, one person died in the southern city of Atlanta, Georgia.
The victim was killed when an “extremely large” tree fell on his house early Sunday, fire official Scott Powell told local media.
Power to thousands of homes had been restored by Monday, but more than 50,000 customers remained without electricity in the states of West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland, according to the monitoring website power outages.
