WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) -- More than 44,000 Americans are without electricity, at least eight million people are under blizzard warnings, and 58 million are in the path of this bitter winter storm, according to a CNN report.

Most of them are in Virginia and North Carolina, where more than 31,000 people have no power.

Nearly 10,000 have lost power in the Boston area. In New York City, more than 3,500 people are without power.

Icy floodwaters rushed in on Thursday in some neighborhoods in Hampton Beach, a beach town in New Hampshire.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said at a news conference on Thursday that Boston could get 12 to 18 inches of snow before the storm moves out of Massachusetts.

Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York state on Thursday declared a state of emergency for the southern part of the state.

A powerful winter storm, called "bomb cyclone," pummeled the South and and Northeast of the United States on Thursday, paralyzing much of the East Coast.