|
 The weather was blamed for at least 13 deaths in the region,
including three people killed when an ambulance transporting a
patient skidded off an icy road in Carlsbad, Texas.
Winter storm warnings and advisories were in place from Arkansas
east to much of the Atlantic coast, the National Weather Service
said. The storm is expected to sock the northeastern United States
in the next two days with up to 15 inches of snow.
"We definitely consider this to be a high-impact event, and we're
definitely telling everyone to stay off the roads and stay inside as
much as possible," said Carl Barnes, a weather service forecaster in
Sterling, Virginia.
Snow and freezing rain that pummeled South Carolina and North
Carolina created a dangerous commute for drivers in a hurry to get
home as the snowfall got heavier and the ice thickened.
A possibly historic accumulation of ice as well as heavy snow was
expected to add up to nearly 8 inches of frozen precipitation for
Charlotte, North Carolina, and 9 inches were forecast for
Spartanburg, South Carolina, meteorologists said.
More than an inch of ice was possible from central Georgia into
South Carolina by Thursday morning, according to forecasters.
Traffic on interstate highways ground to a halt, and at least one
snow plow went off a North Carolina highway into a ditch.
Todd Pekks, a chef at Duke University, was just half a mile into his
drive home to Raleigh when he began to skid so badly he gave up, his
wife Sherri Pekks said.
He made his way back to work on foot, and returned to the kitchen,
she said.
"He's definitely gone for the night. I wonder if he'll be able to
make it back tomorrow," Pekks said.
Fatal road accidents were reported in Mississippi and South
Carolina. In Georgia, a man died of exposure near his home in Butts
County, south of Atlanta, and North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory
told CNN two people had died in weather-related incidents.
STATES OF EMERGENCY
Governors declared states of emergencies from Louisiana to New
Jersey, and hundreds of schools, colleges and offices throughout the
region shut down. The basketball game between archrivals Duke
University and the University of North Carolina was called off.
[to top of second column] |
About 6,700 U.S. flights were canceled or delayed on Wednesday, and
another 3,700 were scrubbed for Thursday, according to
flight-tracking website FlightAware.com. About half of the Thursday
flights to and from Washington and New York were called off.
The U.S. Department of Energy reported that 363,000 power customers
were without electricity as of mid-afternoon. More than a third of
them were in Georgia, where some residents may have to wait up to a
week for power to be restored, said Georgia Power spokeswoman Amy
Fink.
About 5,000 people were without power in Birmingham, Alabama, with
more than 6 inches of snow expected. Roads were closed across the
northern part of the state, authorities said.
In the path of the storm, the White House delayed a Thursday event
to mark the launch of My Brother's Keeper, a campaign to help young
black men. Federal offices in Washington were closed.
Washington city officials authorized a $15 snow surcharge for taxi
rides to encourage cabbies to stay on the road. In New York, the MTA
Metro-North train system was to operate on a reduced schedule on
Thursday.
Most motorists in Georgia, where thousands were stranded in their
vehicles during the last weather front, stayed off the roads after a
state of emergency was declared, Governor Nathan Deal said.
Vehicles that did venture out were soon coated with ice, their radio
antennas looking like ice skewers, television images showed.
Shelters were opened in Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina to help
those stranded by the storm.
(Additional reporting by Harriet McLeod, Jon Herskovitz, Karen
Jacobs, Scott DiSavino, Dave Warner, Verna Gates and Marti Maguire.;
writing by Colleen Jenkins, Ian Simpson and Barbara Goldberg;
editing by Bernadette Baum, Gunna Dickson and Ken Wills)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
