week, for the first time in its history. Stranded motorists at Deep Gap broke into Parkway Elementary School to survive, and National Guard helicopters dropped hay in fields to keep livestock from starving in northern N.C. mountain counties. In Virginia, the LancerLot sports arena in Vinton collapsed due to the weight of the record snowfall, forcing the Virginia Lancers of the ECHL to relocate to nearby Roanoke and become the Roanoke Express. Also collapsing were the roofs of a Lowe's store in Christiansburg and the Dedmon Center, at Radford University. Thousands of travelers were stranded along interstate highways in Southwest Virginia. Electricity was not restored to many isolated rural areas for up to three weeks, with power outages occurring all over the east. Nearly 60,000 lightning strikes were recorded as the storm swept over the country for a total of 72 hours. As one of the most powerful, complex storms in recent history, this storm was described as the "Storm of the Century" by many of the areas affected. Gulf of Mexico The United States Coast Guard dealt with "absolutely incredible, unbelievable" conditions within the Gulf of Mexico. The freighter Fantastico sank off Ft. Myers, Florida, and seven of her crew died when a Coast Guard helicopter was forced back to base due to low fuel levels after rescuing three of her crew. The freighter Miss Beholden ran aground on a coral reef from Key West, Florida. Several other smaller vessels sank in the rough seas. In all, the Coast Guard rescued 235 people from over 100 boats across the Gulf of Mexico during the tempest. Florida Besides producing record-low barometric pressure across a swath of the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic states, and contributing to one of the nation's biggest snowstorms, the low produced a potent squall line ahead of its cold front. The squall line produced a serial derecho as it moved into Florida and Cuba shortly after midnight on March 13. Straight-line winds gusted above at many locations in Florida as the squall line moved through. A substantial tree fall was seen statewide from this system. The supercells in the derecho produced eleven tornadoes. The first tornado was an F2 that touched down in Chiefland at 04:38 UTC on March 13, damaging several mobile homes and downing trees and power lines. Three people were killed and seven people sustained injures. Around the same time, an F1 tornado was spawned