- At least 20 people have died in winter-storm-related conditions in several states.
- Icy roads and struggles to safely heat homes have contributed to perilous conditions.
- Deaths were reported in
Texas , Tennessee, North Carolina, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Oregon.
At least 20 people have died in conditions related to the historic winter storms sweeping large parts of the US and depriving millions of people of power.
Weather-related deaths have been reported in at least seven states, where road travel has been perilous and millions have struggled to heat their homes.
Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, Mississippi, Oregon, and Louisiana have reported tens of thousands of homes without power, according to PowerOutage.us. The storm has hit Texas particularly hard - the website said that 2.9 million people were without electricity there as of early Wednesday.
The storm is not expected to abate until the weekend, Reuters reported.
A grandmother and three children died in a fire early Tuesday outside Houston in a neighborhood that had been without power for eight hours, authorities told the Houston Chronicle.
A spokesman for the Sugar Land Fire Department, Doug Adolph, told the newspaper that the cause of the blaze was under investigation but that social-media posts indicated the family had been using a fireplace to keep warm.
Several other storm-related deaths have been reported in the state, including two men who are believed to have died of exposure and a woman and a child who died of carbon-monoxide poisoning while running a car for warmth.
Carbon-monoxide poisoning has also killed four people in Portland, Oregon, since the storms began, The Oregonian reported on Tuesday.
Sgt. Marcus Mendoza of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office did not release further details about the four deaths but told the paper that officers had responded to numerous "close calls" with the toxic gas as people tried to heat their homes with alternate methods.
At least 165,000 people in Oregon were without power as of early Wednesday, according to PowerOutage.us.
Dangerous, icy driving conditions have also contributed to numerous accidents. A 58-year-old man died on Monday when he lost control of his car and it overturned near Starkville, Mississippi, a coroner told The Associated Press.
In Kentucky, five people have died in weather-related traffic accidents since the weekend, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported. Among them was a 43-year-old woman who was flung out of her car on Monday after she lost control on Interstate 64, crossed to the other lane, and was hit by a tractor trailer, authorities told the paper.
Two people were found dead and a car was found upside-down in a body of water near Milton, Kentucky, on Sunday morning, the Herald-Leader reported. The police told the paper that they believe the car skidded off the road and overturned.
Other storm-related deaths reported include a 10-year-old boy who fell through a frozen pond near Millington, Tennessee, on Sunday, officials told NBC News, and a 50-year-old man who slipped on ice in Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, on Monday, KSLA reported.
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