COLD HITS DEEP SOUTH; FLORIDA CITRUS THREATENED.

Byline: Ronald Smothers The New York Times

A deep freeze swung into the Deep South on Sunday, bringing ice, snow and temperatures below, or barely above, zero to parts of Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama.

Even northern and central Florida were affected, with temperatures in the 20s leaving the state's $1.2 billion citrus industry hanging by an icy thread. Citrus farmers sprayed their trees with water to produce an insulating cover of ice, but high winds were frustrating many of them.

"A lot of the citrus trees have begun to get new buds for next year's crop," said Carl Grooms, a grower near Tampa. "If we get a hard freeze, it could devastate production for next year."

The arctic air that engulfed much of the South still held sway in much of the rest of the nation, with more record lows Sunday from the Rockies through the Upper Midwest to the Northeast.

In the New York area, those residents who could stayed inside, as the region's harsh winter reasserted itself with temperatures in the single digits.

The past week of snow, ice and record cold has been blamed for 55 deaths across the lower 48 states. Traffic accidents accounted for the bulk of the deaths, but some were attributed to hypothermia among the elderly and Alzheimer's sufferers who did not or could not seek shelter and from heart attacks among the elderly.

For the South, where the unseasonable temperatures were expected to continue for at least one more day, the frigid air was accompanied by ice storms and heavy snow across Tennessee, North Carolina, and the northern sections of Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. The snow and ice brought down trees and power lines, causing hundreds of thousands of utility customers to lose power, according to emergency management agencies. Utility companies predicted that as they made repairs, electrical demand was likely to reach record levels as people return to work today.

Several of the traffic fatalities were in the South, but generally officials said people seemed to be heeding the warnings to stay inside and not travel unless absolutely necessary.

Cecil Whaley, a spokesman for the Tennessee Emergency Management Agency, said the central and eastern parts of the state had 5 to 16 inches of snow over the weekend. But he said there were only two weather-related traffic deaths, compared with 15 deaths in a March 1993 blizzard.

"We feel people are listening to us," he said. "Retail business is off sharply, but that should improve in the next two days."

Meanwhile in Chicago, officials ended the two-day weather emergency in the city, as temperatures rose to zero or above in much of the Midwest for the first time since Tuesday.

Temperatures reached a fairly tolerable 6 degrees in Chicago on Sunday after much of the region had set record-breaking lows in the past week with temperatures far below zero in parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa.

Warmer air from the Gulf of Mexico and an area of high pressure in east Texas began crawling into the Midwest, gradually elevating its temperatures.

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PHOTO

A mass of icicles forms around the fountain at All Children's Park in Monroe, La. Associated Press