Arkansas ? Tree limbs snapped with a sound like gunshots, blacking out thousands of homes and businesses, and schools and government offices were closed Tuesday as a major storm spread a glaze of ice and snow from the southern Plains to the East Coast.

At least 19 deaths had been blamed on the weather.

Highway crews fought to keep up with slippery roads and in some places were blocked by fallen tree limbs and power lines. Ice had built up 3 inches thick in sections of Arkansas and Oklahoma.

The National Weather Service posted ice storm and winter storm warnings Tuesday along a broad swath from Texas and Oklahoma through the Mississippi and Ohio valleys all the way into northern New England. Radar showed smears of snow and freezing rain stretching from Texas to Pennsylvania during the evening.

Broken tree limbs weighted down by ice crashed onto power lines, cutting service to at least 165,000 homes and businesses in hard-hit Arkansas, utilities said.