Parts of Illinois have been inundated with more than a foot of snow, while Indiana tallied more than 11 inches

The heavy precipitation mixture threatens power outages, tree damage, and dangerous travel conditions, the forecasters said. Areas seeing those conditions can also expect to experience below freezing temperatures in the days after the wintry mix ends.

Dangerous travel conditions were already seen Tuesday in Illinois, where officials closed parts of several highways after crashes led to some injuries.

“The combination of the volumes of snow, high winds, and frigid temperatures make travel near impossible in some areas of the state with several highways shutdown from vehicle crashes and jack-knifed semi-trucks,” Kevin Sur, spokesperson for the Illinois Emergency Management Agency, told CNN.

Leaders of the state’s power grid — Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT — reassured Texans Wednesday that it expects to be prepared to handle the high demand the storm will deliver but also warned there may be local outages unrelated to capacity.

How officials are preparing

In anticipation of those potentially dangerous conditions, some schools have canceled classes this week.

The Dallas Independent School District will close Thursday and Friday, and schools are not expected to make up those days, officials said.

School districts in Kansas City, Missouri, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, also shuttered classrooms Wednesday due to the storm.

Meanwhile, state leaders are taking steps to prepare.

The governors of Illinois and Arkansas deployed their states’ National Guard while Missouri and Oklahoma are under states of emergency through Thursday.

Arkansas allocated $250,000 for recovery efforts. And Illinois prepared more than 1,800 trucks and equipment to plow, treat roads and respond to weather emergencies, according to the state’s Department of Transportation.