Major winter storm across US brings snow, freezing temperatures, widespread power outages
A major winter storm continued across the United States on Sunday morning, dumping snow, sleet and snow in southern states and moving up through New England, bringing frigid temperatures, widespread power outages and treacherous road conditions.
Snow and ice were expected to continue into much of the country on Monday, followed by freezing temperatures, causing “dangerous impacts on travel and infrastructure” to be delayed for several days, the US National Weather Service said.
Heavy snow was forecast from the Ohio Valley to the northeast, while “catastrophic snow accumulation” threatened from the Lower Mississippi Valley to the mid-Atlantic and southeast.
“It’s a unique storm in the sense that it’s widespread,” meteorologist Allison Santorelli said in a phone interview. “It was affecting areas from New Mexico, Texas, all the way to New England, so we’re talking about 2,000 miles. [3,200-kilometre] spreading.”
As of Sunday morning, about 213 million people were under some form of winter weather warning, he said. The number of customers without power reached 840,000, according to poweroutage.us, and the number was rising.
Forecast for ‘disabling local catastrophic impacts’
Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have declared weather emergencies, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said.
At a news conference Saturday, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem warned Americans to take precautions.
“It will be very cold,” said Noem. “So we can encourage everyone to stock up on fuel, stock up on food, and we’ll get through this together.”
He added, “We have staff working to restore that as quickly as possible.”
The number of outages continued to rise. As of 7:23 a.m. ET Sunday, more than 500,000 US customers were without power, according to PowerOutage.us, with more than 100,000 each in Mississippi, Texas and Tennessee. Other affected states include Louisiana and New Mexico.
The Department of Energy orders backup utilities
The Department of Energy on Saturday issued an emergency order authorizing the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to release backup generators to data centers and other large facilities, aimed at reducing blackouts in the state.
On Sunday, the department issued an emergency order authorizing grid operator PJM Interconnection to use “specified services” in the mid-Atlantic area, regardless of restrictions due to state laws or environmental permits.
The US National Weather Service has warned of an unusually wide and long-lasting winter storm that will bring heavy snow accumulation to the southeast, where it can be expected to “disabling catastrophic local impacts”.
Weather service forecasters predicted record freezing temperatures and dangerous wind chills to hit the Great Plains on Monday.
Airlines, grid operators are scrambling to prepare
More than 10,000 flights had already been canceled on Sunday and another 8,000 were delayed, and more than 4,000 flights were canceled on Saturday, according to flight tracker flightaware.com. The major hubs hit so far have been in Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Raleigh-Durham in North Carolina, New York and New Jersey.
At Philadelphia International Airport, the interior shows many canceled flights and few cars arriving Sunday morning.
Even when snow and ice stop falling, the danger will continue, meteorologist Santorelli warned.
“After the storm, it will be very cold across the eastern two-thirds of the nation, east of the Rockies,” he said. That means snow and ice won’t melt as quickly, which could hamper some efforts to restore power and other infrastructure.
Nashville and the surrounding area saw snow accumulations of 1.3 centimeters (half an inch) or more, with snow hanging from power lines and heavy tree limbs falling to the ground.
“We usually say that when you start seeing, you know, about half an inch of snow, that’s when you’re going to start seeing widespread power outages,” Santorelli said.
In Oxford, Miss., police on Sunday morning used social media to tell residents to stay home as the risk of being outside is too great. Local utility workers were also pulled from their jobs during the night hours.
“Due to life-threatening conditions, Oxford Utilities has made the difficult decision to pull our crews off the road for the night,” the utility company posted on Facebook early Sunday.
“The current situation is too dangerous to continue,” the statement said. “Trees are snapping and falling around our crews while they’re on the bucket trucks. We can’t clear lines faster than legs are falling.”
Snowy roads made travel dangerous in north Georgia.
“You know it sucks when Waffle House is closed!!!” The Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office posted on Facebook a photo of the closed restaurant. Whether the chain’s restaurants are open – known as the Waffle House Index – has become an informal way to measure the severity of weather disasters across the US South.
