tornado damage . '' He added , `` Our officers are wearing metal cleats just so they can walk the streets . '' iReport.com : Send your wintry weather photos , videos Northwest Arkansas has been hit hard , and schools and universities were closed throughout the state . See the impact of the storms '' `` It 's like a ghost town , '' Barbara Rademacher of Rogers , Arkansas , said Wednesday morning . `` It 's just white and ice , '' Rademacher said while looking out her kitchen window at a street devoid of traffic and littered with the ice-weighted branches of oak trees . `` The roads are impassable , and there are shelters set up in every community because there are so many people with power out , '' she said . The storms were extending their reach into the New England states Wednesday . The National Weather Service issued freezing rain , ice and winter storm warnings from Texas up through the Ohio Valley and into New England . Watch how to have fun in the snow '' As of Wednesday , the Oklahoma Corporation Commission reported at least 27,621 homes and businesses
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- A massive winter storm has left at least 17 people dead and more than a million homes across the Midwest without power , according to reports from several state emergency management agencies . A tree pulls on utility lines Wednesday in Louisville , Kentucky , in a photo from iReporter Jacek Jasinski . Almost half those households are in Kentucky , where 45 shelters have been set up to help residents battling icy conditions , a spokesman for the governor 's office said . `` One of our biggest concerns is -LSB- providing -RSB- power generators , especially for nursing homes out in the western part of the state that are without power , '' Jay Blanton , spokesman for Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear , said Wednesday . The storm dumped ice and snow on a region that extends from Texas to Kentucky and left `` absolutely everything in northwest Arkansas ... at a standstill , '' an Arkansas police officer said . Watch ice damage trees in Arkansas '' `` It 's hard to walk , let alone drive , '' Fayetteville , Arkansas , police officer Dan Baker said . `` It looks like