joining us. we re going to begin tonight with the massive winter storm impacting more than a third of the country. the storm stretches 2300 miles from texas to maine. heavy snowfall made for slick roads and dangerous travel conditions and the storm turned deadly with at least two deaths blamed on the weather. the roads were bad but the air wasn t any better, for the second straight day thousands of flights were canceled. dallas-fort worth airport was forced to shut down their runways altogether. more than 250,000 customers are without power tonight after freezing rain and ice downed trees and power lines from texas to ohio. tennessee is the hardest hit with more than 140,000 without power. breaking news, the severe weather led to a large tornado in alabama that killed at least one person and destroyed several homes in rural hale county, located about 70 miles southwest of birmingham. we have two reports on this monster storm starting with cbs s kris van cleave from dallas. good evening
since 2017. stephanie ruff had her flight canceled at d.f.w. after traveling for a church conference. i m worried about spending the night here. that s why we re trying to find a place to sleep tonight. reporter: limited flight have resumed here at d.f.w. but already nearly 2,000 flights have been canceled for tomorrow. many out of the northeast, and the biggest test for the texas power grid is yet to come. temperatures are going to plunge with wind chill, it s going to feel as cold as negative 6. norah. o donnell: that s cold in texas. kris van cleave, thank you. this monster storm is far from over, to find out where it s headed next, we bring in weather channel s mike bettes who is in snow in cleveland. reporter: the storm that hammered states from texas through new england. here in ohio in cleveland an absolute beating from this winter storm. temperatures developed into the
concern here remains the power. it is frigid and with wind chill it feels about 9 and going to get colder so it is a race to get the lights back on for as many people as possible, but there are folks here in texas who worry even if the lights come back on they may not stay on. o tho without per amid plunging temperatures, more than 100 homes in this neighborhood just outside of dallas. we lost power last night. reporter: the silverman-zelling family lost power around 1:00 a.m., stacy is diabetic and worried her insulin would spoil. the pines. there s the power. reporter: a moment of relief. your lights came on. is that relief? yeah but we don t trust it. reporter: with temperatures in the 20s the outage is a reminder of last year s deadly storm that crippled the lone star state. the outages are spotty this time
many caused by iced over trees coming down on power lines leaving a huge mess for crews working to get the power back on. we are dealing with one of the most significant icing events that we ve hadth stf texas. reporter: outages have left more than 250,000 in the dark across the south and midwest. more than 136,000 have lost power in tennessee alone. the icy roads caused several deaths including a driver in dallas who is ejected from this truck and fell on to the road below. across the country, snow, sleet and ice made driving treacherous, stranded trucks lined the median of this stretch of i-74 in central illinois. the storm triggered tornado warnings in alabama with reports of damage and people trapped. back in texas, all flights in and out of dallas-fort worth airport were stopped for hours after the runways iced over. iationwide more than 5,000 flights were canceled today alone, the most cancellations in a single day for a weather event