As communities across the U.S. try to dig out from what one reporter called a “monster winter storm,” the next danger isn’t just the snow piled on sidewalks—it’s the brutal cold settling in behind it, turning daily life into a risk calculation that changes by the hour.
In an ABC News report carried by ABC11, Reena Roy said the storm’s toll had climbed to at least 35 deaths nationwide, with fatalities reported across the Northeast, the South, and the Plains, while a new blast of extreme cold tightened its grip on much of the country.
At the same time, a separate local tragedy in North Texas put a heartbreaking face on what “severe winter weather” really means, as FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth reporter Shannon Murray shared the story of three brothers who died after falling through ice on a pond near Bonham.
It’s the kind of one-two punch winter can deliver: broad national disruption on one screen, and then the most personal kind of loss on another, both tied together by the same invisible threat – ice that looks solid until it isn’t.
Extreme Cold Spreads As Millions Stay On Alert
Roy said roughly 220 million people were under alerts for extremely low temperatures stretching from Texas to Florida and up to New York, a span so wide it’s hard to picture until you realize it covers almost every kind of climate Americans think they “know.”
Her report included helicopter video from New York City, showing huge chunks of ice in both the East River and the Hudson River, a visual that makes the cold feel real even if you’re watching from somewhere warm.
She described staying warm as increasingly difficult for many people during the bitter blast, especially with hundreds of thousands without power, because cold becomes far more dangerous when heat, lights, and reliable cooking disappear.
In Tennessee, Roy said warming centers were opening and the National Guard was in place to help, as some neighborhoods dealt with downed trees, severed power lines, and icy streets that can turn a short drive into a long, stranded wait.
ABC’s Victor Oquendo, reporting from the Donelson area of Nashville, described a scene covered in snow and ice, with downed trees and limbs “in every direction,” and he pointed out a downed power line on the ground – one of those hazards that can be deadly even after the storm clouds clear.
Roy noted that ice wasn’t only clinging to branches and rooftops; it was also covering major roadways, making travel treacherous in areas that don’t regularly deal with prolonged freezing conditions.
That detail matters because winter storms don’t just test road crews; they test experience, and the places that see this kind of ice once in a while often get hit the hardest when it shows up.
Road Rescues, Black Ice, And Travel That Grinds To A Halt
Roy said that in Texas, volunteers with the United Cajun Navy were bringing food, doing welfare checks, and looking for dangerous black ice on rural roads, which can look like normal pavement right up until your tires lose grip.
A volunteer in her report put it bluntly, saying, “We don’t deal with ice,” and explained they were checking on people and making sure everyone was taken care of – words that sound simple, but describe the exhausting work of helping neighbors when conditions become unfamiliar and risky.
In Louisiana, Roy said travel was still treacherous, citing stalled traffic on Interstate 20 and a truck driver who told ABC affiliate KTBS he moved less than half a mile in eight hours, which is the kind of slowdown that turns routine transport into an endurance event.
She reported that state police and the National Guard helped stranded drivers and urged people to stay off roads that remained icy, a warning that often clashes with real-life pressure – jobs, appointments, family obligations – especially when people feel like the worst has already passed.
Roy also said the storm kept hammering air travel, with cancellations stretching into the day of her report, and she highlighted a striking claim from American Airlines, which said this storm had been the most disruptive in the airline’s 100-year history, with more than 9,000 flights canceled.
Even if someone never sets foot on an airplane, disruptions like that spill into everything: delayed cargo, missed connections, stranded travelers sleeping in terminals, and staff working around the clock trying to untangle a knot that keeps tightening.
This is where winter storms feel less like weather and more like infrastructure stress tests, because when roads freeze, power lines fall, and airports stall, you start seeing how quickly “normal” depends on systems that aren’t built to fail gracefully.
Three Brothers Fall Through Ice In North Texas
While Roy’s report captured the national scale, Murray’s story for FOX 4 focused on one devastating moment near Bonham Lake in Fannin County, where three young brothers died after falling into a frozen pond during the storm.
Murray said she spoke with the boys’ mother, Cheyenne Hangaman, who agreed to an interview over Zoom despite unimaginable grief because she wanted other parents to understand how fast something like this can happen.
Hangaman told Murray the family was staying at a friend’s home near Bonham, and she said the house had a small pond in the back; she had warned the boys to stay away from it, but in a split second, that warning wasn’t enough.
According to Hangaman’s account, the youngest, 6-year-old Howard, went onto the ice first and it broke, and then the older boys – 9-year-old EJ and 8-year-old Kaleb – tried to save him, which is both heartbreaking and painfully human, because kids often react with loyalty before they understand danger.
Murray described how Hangaman’s daughter ran to her screaming that her brothers were drowning, and Hangaman said she started running toward the pond and jumped in, trying to save them while also trying to keep herself alive in freezing water.
In the mother’s words, the cold hit like a shock and her body “locked up,” leaving her unable to move the way she needed to, even though she was only one person trying to reach three children who all needed help at the same time.
She told Murray, “It was one of me and three of them… and I couldn’t… I just couldn’t save them,” a sentence that lands like a weight because it captures the awful math of panic: not enough time, not enough strength, not enough warmth in your limbs to do what your brain demands.
Murray added that Hangaman’s message to other parents was simple but urgent—ice can look safe, and it can still kill, especially when kids treat it like a playground instead of a trap.
The Rescue Attempt And The People Who Rushed In To Help
Murray said a local football coach, John Ramsey, the head coach at Bonham High School, heard the commotion and ran over, throwing a rope to Hangaman and helping pull her out of the water.
Hangaman told Murray that Ramsey instructed her to use her elbows to break the ice while trying to reach the rope, which paints a terrifying picture of what it’s like to be trapped in freezing water – your body stiffening, the surface fighting you, and the only goal becoming survival so you can keep trying.
Murray emphasized that even telling the story sounded painful, because Hangaman wasn’t simply describing the loss; she was describing a moment when instinct pushed her forward but physics and temperature pushed back harder.
In these incidents, it’s common for people to think, “I’d jump in too,” and that impulse is understandable, but it’s also why ice rescues can stack tragedies, turning one emergency into multiple drownings when would-be rescuers become victims.
That’s the harsh reality Murray’s report indirectly underscores: freezing water doesn’t care how much you love the person you’re trying to reach, and it can steal your strength so quickly you barely get the chance to fight.
FOX 4’s discussion also noted that a GoFundMe was being shared, and the station took care to confirm that the one posted on their social media would go directly to Hangaman, a small detail, but one that matters in an era when scams often circle tragedies.
What These Two Reports Warn Us About
Taken together, Roy’s national overview and Murray’s deeply personal local story show the same thing from two angles: winter weather kills in big obvious ways – pileups, outages, dangerous travel – but it also kills in small moments that happen behind a house, in a backyard, in less time than it takes to think through a plan.
It’s easy to underestimate cold because it doesn’t look dramatic the way a tornado does, and ice doesn’t roar the way a flood does, yet both reporters described the same kind of threat – conditions that punish mistakes instantly, often before help can arrive.
Roy’s reporting about hundreds of thousands without power, warming centers opening, and the National Guard helping stranded drivers also connects back to the pond tragedy, because when systems strain, families are more likely to end up in unfamiliar situations, staying at friends’ homes, improvising plans, letting kids play outside for relief, and crossing paths with hazards they don’t usually face.
Murray’s story is also a blunt reminder that kids don’t judge risk the way adults do, and even good parenting – warnings, rules, staying nearby – can still lose to a single moment of curiosity, bravado, or sibling loyalty.
If there’s one hard truth that deserves repeating, it’s that ice is not “just ice” during severe winter weather; it’s a surface that can become lethal with almost no warning, and the cold that follows a major storm can be just as dangerous as the storm itself.
A Storm’s Aftermath That Still Isn’t Over
Roy ended her report from New York by making clear that the cold blast was still gripping large parts of the nation, with ongoing outages and travel disruption, and scenes like downed power lines in Nashville showing how hazards remain long after the snowfall stops.
Meanwhile, Murray’s reporting from North Texas left viewers with the kind of grief that doesn’t melt when temperatures rise, because a family can’t “dig out” from losing three children the way a city digs out from drifts.
The two stories sit together in an uncomfortable way: one reminds you the death toll is climbing across regions, and the other shows you exactly what one of those numbers can look like in real life.
And if severe winter weather has a lesson, it’s that the danger isn’t only in the forecast – it’s in the days after, when fatigue sets in, people take risks to get back to normal, and the cold keeps waiting for the next mistake.
Raised in a small Arizona town, Kevin grew up surrounded by rugged desert landscapes and a family of hunters. His background in competitive shooting and firearms training has made him an authority on self-defense and gun safety. A certified firearms instructor, Kevin teaches others how to properly handle and maintain their weapons, whether for hunting, home defense, or survival situations. His writing focuses on responsible gun ownership, marksmanship, and the role of firearms in personal preparedness.
