Severe Weather and Infrastructure

A series of winter storms has closed K‑12 schools and major universities across the Southeast for a second straight week, as ice‑slicked roads and lingering power outages make travel unsafe from Mississippi and Tennessee to the Carolinas and Georgia. Nearly 75,000 customers in Mississippi and Tennessee remained without electricity Monday afternoon, and Nashville officials say 71 schools were at one point without full power, forcing Metro Nashville Public Schools and nearby districts to stay shut or rely on limited remote learning. Large systems around Atlanta, Charlotte, Memphis and Raleigh were closed again Monday, with some North Carolina and northern Mississippi districts already extending cancellations through at least Tuesday or the rest of this week and warning they will need to add makeup days to the calendar. Several flagship universities — including Ole Miss, UNC‑Chapel Hill, NC State, the University of South Carolina and the University of Tennessee Knoxville — canceled in‑person classes at least through Monday, highlighting how the storm’s impact has reached higher education as well. Researchers at the Northwest Evaluation Association warn each weather‑closure day can translate into nearly four days of lost learning for children once housing disruption, stress and other factors are counted, raising fresh concerns about cumulative learning loss from repeated extreme‑weather shutdowns. On the ground, families like assistant elementary teacher Chiquitta Fields’ in Belzoni, Mississippi, are paying hundreds of dollars to shelter in hotels without pay so medically fragile children can stay on oxygen, underscoring how fragile infrastructure and limited safety nets turn school closures into broader crises.