Over a million Americans are without power, and at least nine are dead as a result of the winter storm battering the southern and eastern United States.

Winter Storm Fern has blanketed the country with ice, snow, and freezing temperatures — a dangerous combination that has many concerned power outages will last into next week. Airlines across the United States have canceled the highest number of flights since the coronavirus pandemic, according to USA Today, with 4,500 flights within, into, or out of the United States delayed as of Sunday night, according to FlightAware.com. Over 11,000 flights have been canceled.

“The dangers aren’t over even with the precipitation ending,” National Weather Service Weather Prediction Center meteorologist Brian Hurley told USA Today. “A lot of the areas that are still getting the heavy ice, freezing rain, sleet and snow, will stay below freezing through the work week.”

“We worry about people having cold weather exposure with no power,” Hurley said.

The storm, which began on Friday, has hammered a stretch of the United States from Texas to the East Coast, dumping snow and freezing rain across hundreds of miles. Several states have declared emergencies over the impacts of the storm, including Tennessee, Indiana, and South Carolina, among others.

“Heavy snow will continue to spread across the Northeast this evening and overnight, with rapid accumulations (1–2”/hr) producing totals around 2 feet in parts of the region. Catastrophic ice impacts linger farther south with prolonged power outages,” the National Weather Service posted on Sunday afternoon.

Videos and images of the storm’s aftermath posted online have shown a glimpse of the damage, with downed power lines and trees blocking roads. Numerous closures and restrictions of schools, businesses, and local offices have been announced.

At least five of the dead were found outside in New York, but reports say they were not believed to be homeless.

“While we do not yet know their causes of death, there is no more powerful reminder of the dangers of the extreme cold, and how vulnerable how many of our neighbors are, especially homeless New Yorkers,” New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said.

Another exposure-related death was reported in Michigan and one in Austin, Texas. Two more were reported in Louisiana.

Former CNN host Don Lemon said on Sunday that he believed the Trump administration would “go around a judge” if necessary to prosecute him for disrupting a Minneapolis church service alongside radical protesters.

Speaking to fellow former CNN host Alisyn Camerota — now a special events anchor for Scripps News — Lemon repeatedly professed his innocence, claiming he was only observing the protest as a journalist. Lemon claimed that the Trump administration would prosecute him by any means necessary, even if it meant having to “retrofit” laws or circumventing a judge.

A federal appeals court ruled on Friday that the Justice Department established probable cause to charge former CNN host Don Lemon and four others over the anti-ICE church storming in Minneapolis last weekend. The appeals court, however, declined to force a lower court judge to sign arrest warrants.

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Camerota described Lemon as “calm,” “resolute,” and “unapologetic” — and said that he truly believes his actions were protected under the First Amendment because he was acting solely as a journalist at the time.

Noting that one judge had already denied the Justice Department’s request to charge Lemon for his role in the protest — a protest that has resulted in three arrests thus far — Camerota asked Lemon what he thought might happen in the coming weeks.

“I’m not naive. I think they’re probably going to try again and again as they did with Tish James and Comey and everyone. If one doesn’t work, then they try something else and that fails, and they try something else and then they just don’t give up because they, you know, they want to save face, but I don’t know what’s next,” Lemon said. “I think what’s next is that I have to be in it for the long haul and to, you know, and just to be strong, as always, and keep calm and carry on.”

Lemon went on to say that he fully expected the Trump administration to step outside the law if that was the only way to get him, claiming that they were targeting him specifically because he was the “biggest name” involved.

“If there’s no law to fit, they will try to fit or retrofit something or go around a judge and just do it themselves. And it doesn’t matter and everything that they say pertains to protesters. I was not a protester. It’s very clear about that. If you look at all the evidence, I’m not a protester. And so I think Alisyn — not that I think I know — I was the biggest name. And so if they get a Don Lemon, woohoo, that’s a victory and also I’m the one who put the information out there.”

Lemon joined a large group of anti-ICE protesters who stormed Cities Church in Minneapolis last Sunday during a worship service because one of the church’s pastors is believed to be an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. Three of the anti-ICE agitators who organized the church storming have been arrested by the FBI, including Black Lives Matter activist Nekima Levy Armstrong.