February 4, 1996
Web posted at: 12:20 a.m. EST
ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- Century-old temperature records tumbled across the mid-Atlantic, eastern and southern United States on Saturday as a frigid arctic wave continued its onslaught, bringing rain, ice, and plenty of snow.
Some 17 people are believed to have died because of the severe weather this week, including a man in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who was thought to have Alzheimer's disease. He was found dead in a park a day after he drove away from his nursing home in a delivery van.
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Weather-related accidents claimed at least 12 more lives, as freezing rain, sleet, and ice made road travel a near-suicidal proposition in some areas.
As heavy snow swathed several parts of the country -- from Oklahoma to West Virginia -- subzero temperatures were recorded across the Plains, the Midwest and much of the South on Friday, freezing pipes, paralyzing heating systems, numbing car batteries and closing schools in several states.
Branches heavy with ice pulled down power lines, cutting electricity to tens of thousands in the South.
Many elderly patients who needed power to sustain at-home treatments were transported to hospitals until electricity supply could be restored to their homes.
Thousands of airline passengers were stranded in airports after flights to cities hit by the storm were canceled. Birmingham Airport was closed early Saturday, but later reopened, while flights to and from Atlanta, Charlotte, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York were either canceled or delayed.
| Boston | Charlotte | JFK |
| Laguardia | National | Dulles |
| Baltimore-Washington | San Francisco (rain) | Philadelphia |
In Tower, Minnesota, where the 60-below reading broke a 97-year state record, it was so cold that bananas turned rock-hard, and some people were using the tropical fruit to hammer nails.
A sampler of the punishing weather elsewhere: Parts of Montana endured a stiff -36 degrees; Cedar Rapids and Dubuque, Iowa, shivered in -27 degree weather; and Mississippi braced for pipe-bursting lows of minus 5.
Temperatures also plummeted to record lows for the date in Montana, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Colorado, Washington, and Illinois.
Those hoping for a thaw over the weekend are likely to be disappointed. The lethal weather is expected to remain over the Eastern two-thirds of the country until Monday.
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