A major winter storm slammed the southern US Tuesday, blanketing parts of the Gulf Coast with record-breaking snowfall in a region largely unaccustomed to extreme winter weather.

Streets and school bus stops were eerily quiet as Killearn and the rest of the northeast part of the city experienced a rare snowstorm.

Millions of people across the northern Gulf Coast braced Tuesday for a rare winter storm that’s expected to scatter heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain around the Deep South as a blast of Arctic air plunges much of the eastern U.S. into a deep freeze.