A vast storm Wednesday spread freezing rain and up to a foot of snow from the Texas Panhandle to Virginia, shutting down hundreds of schools, making highways dangerously slick and knocking out power to nearly 100,000 people.

“Everybody needs to stay home,” Oklahoma Highway Patrol Lt. Jerry Treadwell said.

Slippery roads were blamed in at least five traffic deaths, including two each in Kentucky and Missouri and another in Tennessee.

“It’s nasty — sleet, snow, freezing rain, a little bit of everything,” said Shari Clapp with the Kentucky State Police in Mayfield.

Snow fell along a path from Texas to the Appalachians of southwestern Virginia. Only a few inches fell in most areas, but nearly a foot piled up in the Oklahoma Panhandle, and trees and power lines were coated with ice across the state.

In the Appalachians, the Blue Ridge Parkway was shut down in North Carolina as a foot of snow piled up in some areas. Fort Campbell, the army post along the Kentucky-Tennessee line, closed down.

“Man, it’s cold. That wind’s been blowing steady,” said Greg Conner, 35, a construction worker working on a new hospital in Nashville, Tenn. A solid sheet of ice covered part of the construction site.

Schools were closed in nearly a dozen states, including Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, the Carolinas and Virginia. Some Georgia schools closed as a precaution because of expected icy roads.

More than 100,000 students were sent home early in the Charlotte, N.C., area, and South Carolina Gov. Jim Hodges told state agency heads to let workers go home early in 22 counties ahead of the storm.

Some businesses also shut down early. “Some of us have to drive 20 miles to get home, and it would be nice to get there before the worst of this hits,” said Debbie Martin, co-owner of D & J Hair Cuttery in Gainesville, about 50 miles northeast of Atlanta.

Marvelle Hawkins stocked up on groceries at Greenville, S.C., because an ice storm four years ago trapped her at home with no electricity or food.

“When they say it’s going to ice, it’s going to ice,” said Hawkins, 31. “I don’t take the chance anymore.”

Stores sold out of ice scrapers and emergency shelters braced for weather refugees. At the Merita Bakery in Charlotte, N.C., employees were working overtime baking bread.

“If people just hear the threat of weather you can’t get it out there fast enough,” bakery supervisor Mark Wilcox said.

Some 37,000 homes and businesses were blacked out in Oklahoma, utility officials said. Lt. Gov. Mary Fallin declared 42 of the state’s 77 counties a disaster emergency area, allowing utilities to ask for help from out-of-state companies.

About 56,000 homes and business had no electricity in northern Arkansas, and utilities said some people might have to wait until Saturday to get their lights back.

The stormy weather was caused by a combination of moist air flowing out of the Gulf of Mexico and frigid air pouring down from the north.

International Falls, Minn., had a low of 17 below zero, while the wind-chill reading at Minot, N.D., reached 40 below.