A major winter storm whipped the Upper Midwest early Monday, just after a historic snowfall buried much of the Northeast.

The latest blizzard dumped 8 to 15 inches of snow across parts of seven states but saved most of its fury for the Dakotas and Minnesota, the National Weather Service said. Snow showers and blowing snow were expected to linger Monday across the area.

More than 1,000 miles away, residents of the Northeast spent the weekend digging out from a storm that dumped several feet of snow across the region.

In the Southeast, at least 15 tornadoes formed across southern Mississippi and Alabama on Sunday afternoon as a cold front moved in. Major damage was caused by a tornado that struck Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The Mobile, Alabama, National Weather Service Office was to begin conducting damage surveys Monday.

According to Storm Prediction Center reports, nearly 70 people were injured in Sunday's storms, with at least 61 of those in Hattiesburg.

North begins recovery

In the Northeast, the heavy snow that fell over the weekend was still causing problems Monday. Scott Devico, a spokesman for the Connecticut Department of Emergency Management, said Monday the roofs of 16 homes and buildings had collapsed because of the weight of the snow piled atop them.

The storm's toll rose to 11 when a man and woman were found dead in a car in Meriden, apparently due to carbon monoxide poisoning, Devico said. Five of the nine other fatalities were in Connecticut, along with one in New York, one in Massachusetts and two in the Canadian province of Ontario.

In Bridgeport, Connecticut, Mayor Bill Finch said the city had gotten some 30 inches of snow. As of Monday morning, 10% to 20% of it had been plowed, with the city's main roads expected to be cleared by Tuesday morning, secondary roads by Thursday and Friday, and residential streets by Sunday, he said.

Bridgeport is no special case. "I've talked to other mayors; we're all buried," he said.

National Guard soldiers were helping pick up emergency-center workers and retrieve operators for pay loaders, he said.

Abandoned cars were making the task difficult. "The plows can't get through; pay loaders have to work surgically to try and remove these cars and get the streets cleared," Finch said.

On Sunday night, he said, only two tow trucks were available to the city; the rest were snowed in. By Monday, six tow trucks were operating, he said.

Alternative forms of transportation weren't much better. "It took me 40 minutes to walk four blocks from my house to the Emergency Operations Center," he said.

About 200 people were in shelters Sunday in southeastern Connecticut, Gov. Dannel Malloy said. More than that number found refuge in schools on the South Shore of Massachusetts, where dozens of National Guard soldiers were helping local authorities and residents deal with flooding and storm damage.

The Boston Globe reported that recovery efforts were in motion, and the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency dispatched eight rapid assessment teams to look at conditions in coastal communities. The paper reported that thousands of National Guard soldiers were assisting.

"The devastation we have seen here would lead one to believe that it'll be days before we get power back," said Jim Cantwell, a state representative for the Massachusetts towns of Marshfield and Scituate, where about 90% of customers were without power late Sunday.

In Massachusetts, about 113,000 customers were still without power Monday afternoon, with the greatest concentration of outages in the southeastern and Cape regions, said Gov. Deval Patrick. "I think the utility companies have made great progress, but they need to keep making great progress," he told reporters.

He pleaded with residents using generators to ensure they are properly vented. Officials have received reports of people being overcome with carbon monoxide, "a deadly and silent killer," he said.

Amtrak announced that it would resume normal operations between New York and Boston beginning Tuesday. "Amtrak crews have been working around the clock to clear affected track of large amounts of snow, in excess of several fee in some cases," the rail line said in a statement.