Millions hunker down as storm hits eastern US
WASHINGTON: Millions of Americans hunkered down Sunday (Jan
16) as a major winter storm hit the eastern United States with heavy snow and
ice, knocking power out to an estimated 235,000 people and counting.
The National Weather Service (NWS) said the storm was
bringing a miserable combination of heavy snows, freezing rain and high winds,
impacting the southeast and coastal mid-Atlantic before moving up to New
England and southern Canada.
Traffic has already been seriously disrupted, with thousands
of flights cancelled and a portion of busy interstate highway I-95 closed in
North Carolina.
Drivers were warned of hazardous road conditions and major
travel headaches from Arkansas in the South all the way up to the northeastern
state of Maine.
"Arctic air already in place across the central and
eastern US will work in concert with this dynamic system to deliver a wide
swath of more than a foot (30cm) of heavy snow northward across the upper Ohio
Valley through the lower Great Lakes," the NWS said.
The storm spawned damaging tornadoes in Florida and flooding
in parts of the coast, while in the Carolinas and up through the Appalachians,
icy conditions and blustery winds raised concerns.
In all, more than 80 million people fell under the winter weather
alerts, US media reported.
Around 2,900 flights within, into or out of the US were
cancelled by mid-afternoon Sunday, according to the FlightAware website, and a
further 2,400 were delayed.
About 235,000 customers had already lost power in the southeast,
including more than 150,000 in the Carolinas, according to the website
PowerOutage.US.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp had declared a state of
emergency on Friday, and snowplows were at work before noon to clear the roads.
Virginia and North Carolina have also declared states of
emergency. The Weather Channel reported that more than 30cm of snow had fallen
in North Carolina.
The NWS even reported some snow flurries in Pensacola,
Florida, while usually mild Atlanta, Georgia also saw snow.
The storm is expected to cause some coastal flooding, and
the NWS warned that winds could near hurricane force on the Atlantic coast.
The northeastern United States had already seen snow chaos
in early January, when a storm blanketed the Northeast.
After that storm, hundreds of motorists were stuck for more
than 24 hours on a major highway linking to the capital Washington.
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