Parts of the South were at a standstill on Wednesday after a rare winter storm dumped record amounts of snow on much of the Gulf Coast and the Carolinas. In its aftermath, major cities and beachfront communities from East Texas to the Outer Banks were facing days of rare, freezing temperatures.

The storm, fueled by a whirling mass of Arctic air, killed at least 10 people in Texas, Alabama and Georgia, and left ice-covered roads and frozen bridges in its wake. North Carolina opened warming centers and deployed more than 1,300 vehicles to treat roads and remove ice, and many schools and businesses were closed, some for days.The snow canceled classes and made getting to work impossible, disrupting routines and causing an array of problems in New Orleans, where most people have little or no experience navigating wintry conditions.

But amid the complications on Wednesday, the winter storm made the landscape a dazzling spectacle. Snow coated roofs and parked cars; icicles dangled from porches. Some made sleds out of whatever they could find — trash bin lids, baking sheets, cardboard boxes. There were snowball fights and a group of teenagers wielded icicles like swords.Amid an extraordinary storm that delivered a blast of winter to Southern states, Florida appeared to have shattered its state record for the most snow over 24 hours.

Milton, a town in the western panhandle, picked up 8.75 to 10 inches of snow from Tuesday morning to Wednesday morning, more than doubling the previous 24-hour state record of four inches set on March 6, 1954, also in Milton, according to the National Weather Service.