A snowstorm of historic proportions walloped the Gulf Coast this week, delivering travel-snarling snow from Texas to the Carolinas and breaking records that have stood for more than a century. At least nine people have died across the central and eastern United States,

A rare winter storm with heavy snow and ice is blasting areas from San Antonio and Houston, Texas, to New Orleans and eastward into parts of Alabama, Florida and Georgia. While it has happened before,