A fierce winter storm has left a trail of destruction across the southern US, devastating communities and killing three people in Louisiana.

The weather has also left tens of thousands without power across six states.

Several east coast states are forecast to be hit by snow and freezing rain late on Thursday and into Friday.

The storm system has also brought blizzard-like conditions to the Midwest.

In Louisiana, officials have so far confirmed three deaths and dozens of injuries as a result of the storm. In one incident, a 56-year-old woman in St Charles Parish near New Orleans was killed after a tornado destroyed her home.

Communities across the state reported severe damage, including downed power lines and collapsed buildings. In Jefferson Parish - a suburb of New Orleans - the sheriff's office said that homes and businesses in the area had "suffered catastrophic damage".

One Louisiana resident, Michael Willis, told the BBC's US partner CBS that a close encounter with a tornado near the town of Harvey was "the scariest thing" he has ever experienced.

The tornado lifted him up while he was sitting in his car, a large SUV, while debris smashed through his windshield and passenger window.

"It happened fast," he said. "I'm looking at wood, buildings, all in the same spin, like it's spinning with me and then it just slung me out."

Earlier, Louisiana health officials confirmed that a 30-year-old woman and her eight-year-old son were found dead in Caddo Parish in the northwest corner of the state.

As of 15:00 local time (20:00 GMT) on Thursday, about 10,000 people were still without power in various parts of the state, according to the website poweroutage.us.

Power outages were also reported in Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia. In Wisconsin alone, 60,000 people were without power on Thursday afternoon.

In Florida and Georgia, millions of people were still under tornado watch as the sun rose on Thursday, with authorities warning residents of "damaging to destructive winds". A tornado watch is in effect in parts of western Florida and south-western Georgia until Friday morning.

Further north, forecasters expect snow and freezing rain to continue through at least Friday afternoon across a large swathe of the country from the east coast to the Midwest.

"This system is notable for the fact that it's going to impact areas all the way from California to eventually the Northeast," National Weather Service meteorologist Frank Pereira told CBS.

In South Dakota, the snow - which was nearly two feet (0.6 metres) high in some areas - prompted officials to close a 320-mile (514km) stretch of highway.

Additionally, in Minnesota, the Star Tribune reported that blizzard-like conditions were likely until Thursday, with as much as 2.5 feet (0.75 metres) of snow likely by the weekend.

In Canada, large parts of Ontario remained freezing rain warnings on Thursday, while snowfall warnings were issued for areas including Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City.

"It's our time to shine! Well, not literally, what with the lack of electricity and all. But you get the idea." - proponents of deregulation

Seriously 😂 we got a backup system after last years nonsense.

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Today's schadenfreude brought to you buy (flips through climate change notebook )

Catastrophic life ending tornadoes! Congratulations, everyone!

It does if you regulate how far power lines must be away from large trees.

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They’d bury those lines in that case. Always a work in progress though.

Nah man, that guy is confident that progress is impossible so we should just give up.

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They can and do enforce it in most states, its not uncommon to see power companies trim trees on peoples property to protect their infrastructure. The main issue is that there is a huge amount of powerlines that they have to check, so not every area is cleared timely.

My property has lines running in the back of it. The electric company has right of way for tree trimming back there and every few years they cut the trees back.

That guy can doubt all he wants but it's already something that happens.

just remember red states... government help is socialism

"The Day After Tomorrow" movies weather chaos seems like its actually becoming a real thing....

Governments being unable to enforce reasonable regulation would just be another example of something needing to be fixed.

Yeah, and the North Atlantic Ocean circulation which is what triggered the whole disaster in the movie, is also starting to slow down and could completely stop this century. While the movie completely blew everything out of proportion such as Hollywood likes to do for entertainment, it still means we are going to get more and more severe weather randomly.

Nah, its cool, no need to panic; world leaders will get together and plan to make a plan to cut emissions in 30 years.

Bound, gagged and pacified

This might be the season I get my generator so I can keep the fridges and well pump going. No toilets sucks as much as no fridge.

Have you never seen companies trimming trees before? They will show up in a cherry picker and lop off branches that grow too big for their britches.

...there are red and blue states on the list.

You already know which states are gonna reject.

Reddit when it comes to power grid just circle jerks texas, when the top ten states with the best power grid are dead even along party lines. A good power grid is about location and clean energy sources plus building nuclear energy plants. We don't have the amount of nuclear energy plants we need because everyone got overly spooked at incidents from extremely neglected nuclear facilities.

It's the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC for short). Not just the North, the whole ocean.

What are you taking about? They absolutely can and do enforce that in many places.

true. but blue states don't throw fits about socialism and how helping others is bad because "it's socialism and government overreach". red states do and often. they even voted not to send funding to NY when it got trashed by Sandy

I'd vote no to sending money to ny and I live here. Money in ny goes straight to politicians bank accounts, passing bills to make money, over auditing businesses, paying off debt they somehow acquire with all the money being thrown at them, and that they collect. State can buy a damn football stadium but god forbid doing something useful.

Why would I want a state that does nothing to get more money to not do shit.

I have literally watched the power company trim trees in front yards to keep them away from lines. You are talking out of your ass.

...that's not what emergency funding does...

Tbf this is a shit proposition if anyone lives in a lightly forested area and not the solution you think it is.

Without regulation tree falls on power lines. With regulation anyone that lives near trees needs to pay a fuckload extra for power to go through so superficial approval process where the government gets to approve of a transaction between two parties who are already accepting the risk that trees might fall on a line

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After getting two feet of snow and loosing my power for 14 hours, having a generator and a neighbor that gave me a hand, when my plow trucked died, it’s gonna be a little bit before I’m ready for the next round

Ohio power companies trim private property trees to maintain a clear right of way around power lines. They come by about every three years. We just had ours done and we have a lot of trees on the street.

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Maybe more. If it's cold out, you can put your food outside.

Ngl I know this is fucked, but I was sorta hoping Texas was in the mix and that it would avoid Austin… but hey next time maybe

And the northern cycling is threatening to cut out too! (Can't recall the right name, it's the one going through the Barents straight)

From a fuel conservation standpoint (you wouldn't really want the generator running constantly) I'd suggest filling up the bathtub with water and keep a 5-gallon bucket on hand. You can flush the toilet by pouring water into it and this is something that has come in handy in over 30 years of dealing with tropical storms and hurricanes.

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I'd recommend using a good cooler (and ice) for food that needs to be refrigerated and freeze anything else. Freezers are usually better insulated than fridges, keep the interior at a lower temperature, and the food being frozen gives you more leeway as to keeping things at a safe temperature. It can be as little as 4-6 hours with your fridge being off before the interior is warm enough for things to spoil.

Blue states have the highest GDP in the nation, no red states should get any funding at all because why would a state that does nothing get more money to not do shit?

All funding should go to California, New York and Massachusetts by your own logic.

I live in a heavily forested area (the Pine Barrens.) The power company routinely has trimmers come out to cut back any trees that are a threat. Don't know if it's because of a regulation or just cheaper for them to do prevention instead of fixing, but I assure you if they can do it here, they can do it anywhere.

Oh I wouldn't run it 24/7. Just enough to fill the water tank, run the house heater a bit and cool down the freezer and fridge again.

Right? I literally live in the Pine Barrens. It IS a forest. Almost never lose power due in part to the utilities coming out and trimming any trees that would be a threat.

>government help is socialism

Ah yes, socialism is when the government does things. Typical Reddit understanding of economic systems.

They already do this. The trees on the other side of my fence are on public property, OGE came and cut them all up last summer because they were getting too big. I also notably did not call them to do this, I had no idea they were going to do it, they just showed up and those trees looked vastly different when I got home.

The line running through my yard to my house is my problem, I won't get a ticket for not cutting any tree in my yard but I'll be paying to get my house reconnected if one destroys it.

4 of the top 10 highest GDP states are red.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_GDP

That's just another way of saying a majority of the top 10 states for GDP are Blue states.

Either way: red states contribute less than blue states. So by the logic of the first person I responded to, red states deserve nothing at all.

>no red states should get any funding at all because why would a state that does nothing get more money to not do shit?

You said red states “do nothing”. That’s objectively false. Try to avoid moving the goalposts in the future.

Idk our water had some issues last time because of a pump or something at the treatment station (I really don't remember exactly), I wasn't concerned about the toilet. I can pee outside if I need too..

I was concerned about my pipes busting if the power went out for a long time and it got cold enough inside especially if there wasn't really enough water to drip faucets. I assume there will still be water in the pipes but no pressure to push it through so freeze, bust and then you play a waiting game before you know there is a problem. I could be waaaay off on this, I'm not a plumber and would love if someone had good info because I am concerned.

Thankfully the power was pretty stable here it went out for around 45 minutes but it was a planned rolling black out so I knew and didn't panic.

Right they already do this. So if they had to also hire lawyers to navigate a compliance process just to do the same thing they already do then you’d be paying a lot more for power

Why would they need to hire lawyers? The do the thing. Unless the government making the regulation investigates to figure out if they're doing it "right" AND they're doing it wrong, they don't need the legal process. Also utility companies are HUGE, I assure you they already have an in-house legal team for anything they might need, including compliance disputes.

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Texas contributes the most to the GDP for red states at 8.66%(based on your link), but is still something close to 40% less than what California does.

Except if you look at what areas in Texas contribute the most to their overall GDP, it's still the Blue Cities that contribute the most to that 8.66%.

If we wanna talk about moving goal posts, let's talk about how even in red states, blue cities produce and contribute more to society and the national gdp. Or we could talk about how interesting it is that red cities in red states are still Objectively worse off than blue cities in red states.

Edit: Additionally. The bottom states for GDP are almost all Red states. So yes objectively Red states do nothing.

You can't say anything not demonizing republicans on Reddit news.

I didn't say all states don't deserve anything I said specifically NYS. NY doesn't deserve anything because it's corrupt asf.

34 republican congressional members conspired to overthrow the government. Again by your logic, the republican party is corrupt asf, and therefore all Republican controlled states deserve nothing at all.

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So no the government doesn’t just tell someone to do a thing when it comes to most regulation.

There is usually a compliance process which requires frequent disclosures as well as audits, an entire lobbying process before hand because without some industry input the government tends to actually do some pretty stupid shit and periodic feedback periods as well. All of this requires man hours for some pretty intelligent and well paid specialists and it doesn’t materialize out of thin air like in some kind of a time paradox. If they’re working on compliance disclosures, lobbying and audit compliance and fixes then they aren’t doing other shit for the company they are still expected to do so the cost is there regardless if they’re on salary or retainer anyway.

So I’ll pose the question again. Why add all this extra cost for trees when the company literally already does it?

To answer your question directly: Places in the Midwest where the companies DON'T already do it need the regulation in place so that they START. Because red states cut cost and get away with it the way they don't in blue states. Seriously, this isn't rocket science here.

You seem to think these regulations cannot possibly be followed, and you were given examples of how it isn't unreasonable because it is already done in some areas. Then you wanted to say "why do the extra if it is already done," and the answer is that it isn't done everywhere.

New laws to make utilities in areas that DON'T already do it comply with what other places have shown is possible BY doing it already IS a way to reduce treefall damage to powerlines and reduce deaths.

If that isn't clear enough for you, then I can't help you, because you either don't want to understand out of fear or shame of looking bad for being wrong, or because you're deliberately stirring the pot. Either way, I treated you with respect and I tried.

This will be my last response, but I do hope you have a good holiday.

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So the original conversation was about regulation regarding lines and distance to trees. My post is about regulation not being the solution to everything and pitfalls that can be encountered when assuming it is.

There is no need to be hostile. We agree that regulation in some areas is worthwhile just not to stop damage from falling trees.

Companies will already try to limit damage to lines because that’s a bill they’re going to foot. A useful regulation could be something that ensures they can’t pass the cost of damaged lines onto consumers so they would be more incentivized to clear trees but they are already doing this and it’s usually severe winds that blow shit into the lines and not the lines being built directly under trees anyway. Which may not really be a problem regulation can fix especially not the government creating an arbitrary distance between line and tree lmao.

What? This is actually normal for us northerners. What was concerning is the snow we weren’t getting before January the past few years. It was nice (in a way) to get another good December dumping.

Also, early winter tornados aren’t entirely uncommon for the south.

Yes, making a quick comment can only get me so far off my memory. Thank you.

No prob :)

Austin Electric never went down during Uri. They cut power to most residential areas because that was the plan. If you were downtown or lived near a hospital, the power never went out. The City also made a lot of money selling power to other providers.
The water being out was silly though. The one guy who knew how to work the backup generator had retired. No one knew how to turn it on.

That movie was fairly scientifically accurate for what it was. Obviously it was intensified and sped up, bevause movie, but the NAO current is warming much like in the movie. It's not happening that fast, but we will absolutely have storms that continue to intensify.

Everyone dog piles on Texas because they refuse to use the national power grid and instead use their own. They when it gets damaged they cry for national aid.

One of my favorite movies! Burning books in a NYC library to stay warm. I didn't realize the movie was so old

It was fuckin wild here in New Orleans. The tornado missed my house by 2 blocks. I was napping with my little one and woke up to massive destruction in view of my front door.

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you obviously missed the context of my comment. lol