Not surprisingly, the cold weather is also creating economic hardships. CGTN's Karina Huber has that side of the story from New York. 

The Eastern United States was slammed with a monster snowstorm called a "bomb cyclone" early Thursday morning. Some 80-thousand homes and businesses were left without power and nearly five-thousand flights were cancelled. There were delays on AMTRAK, the country's main rail service, and many were told not to come into work. Storms like these always create losers and winners for the economy.

CARY LEAHEY, SENIOR ECONOMIST DECISION ECONOMICS "Clearly, anybody that's making gloves or scarves and warm winter coats, they've been big winners over the past two weeks."

Another big winner utility providers - when temperatures plummet - demand for heating skyrockets. On the losing side - the transportation industry and tourism. Disneyworld, SeaWorld and Universal Studios - in usually sunny Florida - all temporarily shut down. Restaurants also get hit. Planalytics, which monitors weather-related businesses, expects restaurant traffic to be down 10 percent in the first week of January. Home sales could also be hurt. And what about retail sales - the main driver of the U.S. economy Leahey says when the bad weather is expected, it can be a positive.

CARY LEAHEY, SENIOR ECONOMIST DECISION ECONOMICS "Depending on how it's measured, you end up having retail sales tending to do a little bit better over a two to three-month span because people are stocking up on necessities, and then they have to buy a lot of stuff that got ruined."

Retailers also got lucky that the storm didn't hit during the peak shopping season in December.

ROBERT BRUSCA, CHIEF ECONOMIST FAO ECONOMICS "If you had interrupted people during the holiday season, then it would've been quite a bit more disruption."

Overall, Brusca and Leahey don't expect a bit hit to the U.S. economy.

ROBERT BRUSCA, CHIEF ECONOMIST FAO ECONOMICS "You could take a couple of tenths off of GDP growth. It could be more than that if it continues. The question is how much it continues."

KARINA HUBER NEW YORK "The cold chill is expected to last throughout the weekend but things should warm up by Monday. If the forecast is right, the impact of the storm on first quarter GDP is expected to be negligible. Karina Huber, CGTN, New York.