By Eduardo Medina NYTimes News Service
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Parts of the South were at a standstill Wednesday after a rare winter storm dumped record amounts of snow on much of the Gulf Coast and the Carolinas. In its aftermath, major cities and beachfront communities from eastern Texas to the Outer Banks of North Carolina were forced to quickly learn how to dig out, with some borrowing snow plows from northern neighbors more accustomed to winter weather.

The storm, fueled by a whirling mass of cold air originating from the Arctic, killed at least 10 people in Texas, Alabama and Georgia, and left hazardous ice-covered roads and frozen bridges in its wake. Temperatures across much of the South were forecast to stay in the low teens or single-digits through Wednesday night, and many schools, businesses and airports will remain closed, some until Thursday.

Precipitation was winding down Wednesday as the storm pushed off the East Coast, but colder-than-normal temperatures were expected to linger through Saturday. A weaker system may sweep across other parts of the United States into Wednesday night, bringing snow to places that are more accustomed to it, from the northern Rockies to the Great Lakes. The system will continue east Thursday.

Authorities in Florida and Louisiana closed long stretches of Interstate 10, a highway more commonly shut down for hurricanes. A 100-mile stretch of closed interstate in Louisiana spans nearly half the state, and authorities had previously closed a 50-mile stretch between Baton Rouge and Lafayette, and another 50 miles in and around New Orleans on Tuesday.

Cities and towns from Houston to the Florida panhandle were blanketed with snowfall totals unseen in decades. Mobile, Alabama, and Pensacola, Florida, both coastal cities, broke records that have stood since a storm in 1895.