Winter storm wreaks havoc in the US Eastern Coast leaving thousands without power

Some 200,000 were without power in the eastern United States on Monday morning after a major winter storm swept through the region, spurring multiple tornadoes in Florida.

The storm, which brought snow to the northern Plains and the Upper Midwest over the weekend, appeared to spur thousands of flight cancellations between Sunday and Monday.

In North Carolina, it also appeared to play a role in the deaths of two people on Sunday after a vehicle veered off the Interstate 95 before striking several trees in a median.

Nearly 700 miles north in southwest Florida, multiple tornadoes were blamed for destroying more than two dozen homes and damaging others in Lee County on the Gulf Coast, while thousands of homes were left without power.

According to the National Weather Service in Miami, there were “multiple tornadoes” in Southwest Florida Sunday morning. NBC News has contacted the weather service for more information.

Speaking at a news conference that day, Cecil Pendergrass, co-chairman of the county’s board of commissioners, said at four people were injured, while more than 60 homes had been rendered “unlivable” by the tornadoes, according to The Miami Herald.

Pendergrass said the EF2 tornado had also left around 7,000 homes without power. By early Monday morning, just under 1,150 homes in Florida appeared to be without power, according to online tracker PowerOutage.us.

Meanwhile, more than 187,000 customers in other states across the eastern U.S. had also been left without power as of early Monday morning, according to PowerOutage.us.

Tens of thousands of homes in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and New York were affected, with more than 60,000 customers left without power in the Carolinas alone.

The storm also appeared to force the cancellation of thousands of flights across Sunday and Monday, with American Airlines saying on its website that certain customers affected by the storm would be able to rebook flights without a fee.

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