Across the country, officials have attributed at least a dozen deaths to exposure, icy car crashes and other effects of the storm, including two people who died in their homes outside Buffalo, New York, when emergency crews couldnt reach them amid historic blizzard conditions.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Saturday that the the Buffalo Niagara International Airport will be closed through Monday morning, some roads would be closed through Christmas day and almost every fire truck in Buffalo was stranded in the snow.

No matter how many emergency vehicles we have, they cannot get through the conditions as we speak, Hochul said.

Blinding blizzards, freezing rain and frigid cold also knocked out power from Maine to Seattle, while a major electricity grid operator warned the 65 million people it serves across the eastern U.S. that rolling blackouts might be required.

Pennsylvania-based PJM Interconnection said power plants are having difficulty operating in the frigid weather and has asked residents in 13 states to refrain from unnecessary use of electricity. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides electricity to 10 million people in Tennessee and parts of six surrounding states, directed local power companies on Saturday to implement planned interruptions to ensure power system reliability.

Chris Muenks said he and his cats woke up to a cold house in Greeneville, Tennessee on Saturday morning. The power came back on, he said, only to go out again at midmorning in a planned rolling blackout.

Im disappointed in my power grid. It feels like a kick in the gut, Muenks said. I understand storms and I understand wind, but I dont understand dont have enough power.

Across the six New England states, almost 400,000 electric customers remained without power on Saturday morning, with some utilities warning it could be days before power is restored. In North Carolina, nearly 370,000 customers were without power, according to poweroutage.us. PJM Interconnection which covers all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C. also warned rolling blackouts might be required.

In the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga, two people died in their homes on Friday when emergency crews could not reach them in time to treat their medical emergencies, according to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.

This may turn out to be the worst storm in our communitys history, Poloncarz said Saturday morning. There are still likely hundreds of people stuck in vehicles.

Poloncarz said there is no emergency service available in Buffalo and several populous communities surrounding it because so many emergency vehicles are snowbound. He said a doctor had to talk a woman and her pregnant sister through the delivery of the sisters baby.

That is not to say attempts arent being made, but there is no guarantee that in a life-threatening emergency situation that theyre going to be able to respond immediately, Poloncarz said.

Hochul late Friday announced plans to deploy 54 members of the National Guard to the area.

On the Ohio Turnpike, four died in a massive pileup involving some 50 vehicles A Kansas City, Missouri, driver was killed Thursday after skidding into a creek, and three others died Wednesday in separate crashes on icy northern Kansas roads.

A woman in Vermont died in a hospital Friday after a tree broke in the high winds and fell on her. Police in Colorado Springs said they found the dead body of a person who appeared to be homeless as subzero temperatures and snow descended upon the region.

Adding to the woes were power outages that by early Saturday were still affecting more than 1.7 million homes and businesses, according to the website PowerOutage, which tracks utility reports.

The storm was nearly unprecedented in its scope, stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60% of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, the National Weather Service said.

Freezing rain coated much of the Pacific Northwest in a layer of ice, while people in the Northeast faced the threat of coastal and inland flooding.

The frigid temperatures and gusty winds were expected to produce dangerously cold wind chills across much of the central and eastern U.S. this holiday weekend, the weather service said, adding that the conditions will create a potentially life-threatening hazard for travelers that become stranded.

As millions of Americans were traveling ahead of Christmas, more than 5,700 flights within, into or out of the U.S. were canceled Friday, according to the tracking site FlightAware. While in Mexico, migrants camped near the U.S. border in unusually cold temperatures as they awaited a U.S. Supreme Court decision on pandemic-era restrictions that prevent many from seeking asylum.

Forecasters said a bomb cyclone  when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm had developed near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow.

Even people in Florida were braced for unusually chilly weather as rare freeze warnings were issued for large parts of the state over the holiday weekend.

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Bleiberg reported from Dallas. Associated Press journalist Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Corey Williams in Southfield, Michigan; John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia; Maysoon Khan in Albany, New York; and Hannah Schoenbaum in Raleigh, North Carolina contributed to this report.

Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges said the victim was a 19-year-old man. A bystanders jacket was also grazed by a bullet during the shooting at the malls Nordstrom location.

There appeared to be some type of altercation between two groups and at one point, someone pulled out a gun and shot the victim multiple times, the chief said. The entire incident lasted about 30 seconds.

Hodges urged the gunman and the others involved in the fight to turn themselves into police.

We are going to catch you, we are going to lock you up and you are going to get an orange jumpsuit, he said. Its just a matter of when its going to happen.

He also warned people against aiding the suspects in avoiding arrest.

If anybody helps these people I mean so much as buy them a Happy Meal, give them a ride, the visibly upset chief said. Were going to lock you up with them.

The mall is expected to reopen Saturday but the Nordstrom store will remain closed, Hodges said.

Since it opened in 1992, the mall has been a tourist destination and community gathering spot. It bans guns on the premises but shoppers have generally not been required to pass through metal detectors. The mall said in October it was testing a weapons detection system at one of its entrances.

Hodges said the mall is continuously evaluating its security measures, including the possibility of adding metal detectors. Still, the chief added, if we have an incident where someone decides they want to pull out a gun and shoot somebody with a complete lack of respect for human life, then I still dont know what we can do to stop that.

Police did not identify the man who was killed but Hodges said he and Bloomington Mayor Tim Busse spoke to the victims relatives on Friday night.

The family here I really feel bad for them, Hodges said. Their last week before Christmas and now theyre having to bury one of their loved ones.

Mall video surveillance showed the altercation between the two groups estimated as five to nine people erupt into a fistfight before one person pulled out a gun and opened fire, the chief said.

We dont know why it happened or what happened, Hodges said.

A nearby Bloomington police officer one of 16 stationed at the mall Friday heard the gunshots around 7:50 p.m. The officer tried life-saving measures but the victim died.

The lockdown lasted for about an hour before the mall tweeted that shoppers were being sent outside. Videos posted on social media show shoppers hiding in stores, and an announcement in the mall warned people to seek shelter. Some videos show shoppers running for cover after a loud bang is heard.

The reported shooting comes as shopping centers and malls across the U.S. see an influx of customers just days before Christmas.

Jenny Hefty of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and her 16-year-old daughter had just gotten off the escalator up to the malls second floor, in front of the Nordstrom store, when people started running toward them and screaming. Her daughter thought she heard gunshots, although Hefty did not.

At first we thought they were just messing around, she told The Associated Press on Friday night. It was like why are all these kids running by us?

Retailers began shutting their doors and her husband told them to run as armed guards rushed toward Nordstrom, where Hefty had been trying perfume about 20 minutes earlier.

The trio raced to their hotel in the mall complex and frantically tried to reach the couples 18-year-old daughter, 21-year-old son and their friends on their cellphones. They had been shut inside stores or whisked into safer spots as the mall locked down.

The family, which often travels the four hours to the mall, was in town for the Minnesota Vikings football game against the New York Giants on Saturday.

Of course we wanted to come early and do some Christmas shopping, Hefty said.

The Giants were staying at a hotel adjacent to the mall. Pat Hanlon, the teams executive vice president of communications, said he believes some players were in the mall at the time of the shooting.

Everyone is back in the hotel and accounted for now, Hanlon said Friday night.

The mall was placed on lockdown in August after a reported shooting at the suburban Minneapolis shopping complex sent some shoppers running for cover and two people were wounded last New Years Eve during an apparent altercation.

Representatives from the city of Bloomington and Nordstrom did not immediately return requests for comment.

Dazio reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press Sports Writer Tom Canavan contributed

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