North Texas, including Dallas, was among the hardest hit areas, with reports of up to 3 inches of ice in places and 240,000 homes and businesses in the dark because of power outages.
With sleet continuing and the temperatures stuck below freezing, problems were likely to last through the weekend as the storm moved eastward, meteorologists said.
In Dallas, "We haven't seen anything like this in several years, at least since the Super Bowl," said Jeamy Molina, a spokeswoman for Oncor Electric Delivery Co., one of the largest electricity providers in Texas. In the days before the Super Bowl in 2011, North Texas was covered in snow and ice that shut down businesses and power plants.
By Friday afternoon, airlines had canceled more than 680 flights from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, or 80% of scheduled flights. Only a few planes were able to take off in the morning and early afternoon, an airport spokesman said.
Ice also coated eastern Oklahoma and north central Arkansas, while other parts of Arkansas, as well as Missouri and Indiana, got six or more inches of snow by Friday afternoon.
People without power were trying to make do. Jaime Goswick lost power midday at her home in Mountainburg, Ark., 35 miles south of Fayetteville. She and her family had no heat, she said, but a propane-powered oven was enabling her to cook for her husband and two children, ages 5 and 16.
"The first thing I did was make peanut-butter chocolate-chip cookies," said Ms. Goswick, who is 36 years old and works at a radio station in Fort Smith.
The storm, which Texans have dubbed Icemageddon, was expected to taper off Friday afternoon here, in Oklahoma and in Arkansas, but another, smaller bout of freezing rain was expected Saturday. The prospect of icy conditions lingering in Dallas led to several event cancellations, including Sunday's marathon, in which thousands of runners were expected to participate.
Temple Emanu-El has in Dallas canceled Sabbath services for Friday night and Saturday morning, but posted videos of clergy doing various parts of the worship service on its website so people could worship with them from their homes. Rabbis and cantors made the videos with their iPhones as they lit the Sabbath candles and sang songs.
With ample notice of the storm, residents hit the supermarkets Thursday, clearing shelves of essentials, including bread, milk and batteries.
Government offices from Dallas to Little Rock were closed, and Gov. Mike Beebe of Arkansas declared a state of emergency on Thursday. School districts in both states postponed Friday night football games.
Oncor and Entergy Corp., which provide power to much of Arkansas, said they brought in thousands of workers from other states to get power lines repaired quickly. Entergy said it could take up to five days to restore power to the 12,000 homes and buildings that suffered outages in its area, but it expects to get most of the job done much sooner, a spokeswoman said.
In Oklahoma, where 9,000 people and businesses lost power, the state Forestry Division and a relief group were dispatched to remove felled trees and branches so utility crews could maneuver more easily.
In Tennessee, the storm was making roads treacherous and could lead to extensive power outages as it passes through, Larry Vannozzi, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Nashville, said Friday.
"This is not our run-of-the mill winter storm," he said, noting that the unusually widespread storm is expected to last through the weekend, with more ice and snow forecast throughout the affected states.
