|
 Heavy snowfall and ice moving eastward from the Southern Plains
pounded Missouri, Arkansas, southern Illinois, Tennessee, Kentucky,
Indiana and Ohio, the National Weather Service said.
With the storm headed east and sleet and freezing rain expected to
also take a swipe at the South, states of emergency were declared in
North Carolina, Virginia, Mississippi, Georgia, Kentucky, as well as
in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management announced on its web site
that federal offices are closed in D.C. Fort Knox, a U.S. Army post
south of Louisville, Kentucky, also will be closed on Tuesday due to
weather and road conditions, it said on its website.
Airlines canceled nearly 2,600 U.S. flights, with the hardest hit
airports in North Carolina and Tennessee.
Freezing rain encased Tennessee in ice, closing roads, schools and
tourist attractions, including the home of the king of rock 'n'
roll, Elvis Presley's Graceland mansion in Memphis.
Sleet in Arkansas shut schools and Governor Asa Hutchinson told
nearly all government workers to stay home.
 Cars skidded off roads near Louisville, Kentucky, where there were
six times the usual number of accidents and a fleet of more than
1,000 snow plows tried to clear slick roads, officials said.
"It's been all hands on deck," said Chuck Wolfe, spokesman for the
Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.
Citing nasty weather, Kentucky's state legislature said it would not
reconvene until Wednesday at the earliest.
The storm dumped 10 inches (25 cm) of snow on Cincinnati and then
headed east to Washington, D.C., slamming the nation's capital with
heavy snow that could pile as high as 12 inches, said NWS
meteorologist Brian Hurley.
"Washington and Baltimore, that's where the bull's-eye's going to
be," Hurley said.
Slippery roads in western Pennsylvania on Monday were blamed for a
collision between a van and a school bus carrying 13 students about
60 miles (95 km) southeast of Pittsburgh, state police said. Several
people were hurt, although the extent of the injuries was unknown.
[to top of second column] |
About 50 million Americans were under wind chill advisories as the
mercury plunged to new depths, breaking records in New York City,
where it was 5 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 15 Celsius), breaking the
previous record for Feb. 16 of 9 degrees Fahrenheit in 2003, and
Washington, D.C., where it was 6 degrees Fahrenheit, compared with
11 degrees Fahrenheit recorded in 1987, said Hurley.
The weather front, expected to reach Boston by Wednesday, follows a
weekend storm that dumped 16 inches, making it the snowiest February
in the city's history. In the scramble to clear snow on Monday
before the next round arrives, one person died while shoveling in
Brighton and prison inmates from the Massachusetts Department of
Corrections were put to work clearing mass transit rail lines.
"The heaviest stuff will be close to the coast in eastern
Massachusetts," Hurley said.
The new storm will be followed by another arctic front, bringing
frigid cold to the eastern United States by Thursday or Friday,
Hurley said. (Writing by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Additional
reporting by Timothy Ghianni in Nashville, Steve Bittenbender in
Louisville, Steve Barnes in Little Rock, Kim Painter in Cleveland,
Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C., Elizabeth Daley in
Pittsburgh and Mary Wisniewski in Chicago; Editing by Marguerita
Choy, Steve Orlofsky and Clarence Fernandez)
[© 2015 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
Copyright 2015 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
