Nearly 10,000 flights scheduled across the United States for the weekend were called off as a powerful winter storm began battering large parts of the country on Saturday, raising the risk of prolonged power outages and turning major roads treacherous with ice.
Around 140 million people — more than 40% of the U.S. population — were placed under winter storm warnings spanning from New Mexico to New England. The National Weather Service cautioned that the system could bring widespread heavy snowfall along with a potentially catastrophic ice belt stretching from eastern Texas to North Carolina.
In Texas, the state transportation department shared photographs on Saturday showing highways coated in snow in areas north of Dallas.
“It’s happening!” the Texas Department of Transportation wrote. “If anyone asks you… yes… we do want you to stay in and avoid unnecessary travel as the winter storm moves through North Texas this weekend.”
By Saturday mid-morning, ice had accumulated on roads and bridges in about one-third of Mississippi’s counties, said Scott Simmons, a spokesperson for the Mississippi Emergency Management Agency.
Snow also lightly covered parts of Little Rock, Arkansas.
Meteorologists warned that the storm’s impact — particularly in regions hardest hit by ice — could be comparable to the damage caused by a hurricane.
According to the National Weather Service in Fort Worth, ice and sleet that swept through northern Texas overnight were pushing toward central parts of the state on Saturday. With hazardous conditions expected, authorities announced that all schools in Houston would remain closed on Monday.
“Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X. Low temperatures will be mostly in the single digits for the next few nights, with wind chills as low as minus 12 degrees Fahreinheit (minus 24 Celsius).
More than 95,000 power outages were reported across the country Saturday morning, about 36,000 of them in Texas and 10,000 more in Virginia. Snow and sleet continued to fall in Oklahoma.
Governors in more than a dozen states sounded the alarm about the turbulent weather ahead, declaring emergencies or urging people to stay home.
As of 10 a.m. ET, more than 3,400 flights were canceled Saturday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. Nearly 6,200 flights were called off for Sunday.
Angela Exstrom was supposed to fly back to Omaha, Nebraska, from a trip in Mexico, but she learned her Saturday flight out of Houston had been canceled. So instead, she is going back via Los Angeles.
“If you live in the Midwest and travel in the winter, stuff can happen,” she said.
After sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to move into the Northeast, dumping about a foot (30 centimeters) of snow from Washington through New York and Boston, the weather service predicted. Temperatures reached minus 29 F (minus 34 C) just before dawn in rural Lewis County and other parts of upstate New York after days of heavy snow.
Frigid temperatures and ice
Utility companies braced for power outages because ice-coated trees and power lines can keep falling long after a storm has passed.
The Midwest saw wind chills as low as minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 40 Celsius), meaning that frostbite could set in within 10 minutes.
In Bismarck, North Dakota, where the wind chill was minus 41 (minus 41 Celsius), Colin Cross was bundled up Friday in long johns, two long-sleeve shirts, a jacket, hat, hood, gloves and boots as he cleaned out an empty unit for the apartment complex where he works.
“I’ve been here awhile and my brain stopped working,” Cross said.
The storm has been a popular topic of discussion for days at Saint Paul Mini Market in Baltimore.
“Every single person that walks in talks about the storm,” said owner Ayaz Ahmed.
“Somehow, this time around, they did a good job letting people know that here’s a storm coming their way, and everybody knows about the storm, but how to deal with that is another thing,” Ahmed said.
Government prepares to respond
The federal government put nearly 30 search and rescue teams on standby. Officials had more than 7 million meals, 600,000 blankets and 300 generators placed throughout the area the storm was expected to cross, according to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
President Donald Trump said via social media on Friday that his administration was coordinating with state and local officials and “FEMA is fully prepared to respond.”
Nine states have requested emergency declarations, according to a FEMA briefing document released Saturday. The declarations can unlock federal emergency resources. Trump on Friday approved emergency declarations for South Carolina and Virginia, and requests from Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia were still pending as of Saturday morning.
After the storm passes, it will take a while to thaw out. Ice can add hundreds of pounds to power lines and branches and make them more susceptible to snapping, especially if it’s windy.
In at least 11 Southern states from Texas to Virginia, a majority of homes are heated by electricity, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
A severe cold snap five years ago took down much of the power grid in Texas, leaving millions without power for days and resulting in hundreds of deaths. Abbott vowed that will not happen again, and utility companies were bringing in thousands of employees to help keep the lights on.
Churches moved Sunday services online, and the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, decided to hold its Saturday night radio performance without fans. Mardi Gras parades in Louisiana were cancelled or rescheduled.
Philadelphia announced schools would be closed Monday. Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. told students, “It’s also appropriate to have one or two very safe snowball fights.”
Some universities in the South cancelled classes for Monday, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Mississippi’s main campus in Oxford.
At the University of Georgia, in Athens, sophomore Eden England stayed on campus to ride things out with friends, even as the school encouraged students to leave dorms and go home because of concerns about losing power.
“I’d rather be with my friends,” England said, “kind of struggling together if anything happens.”
With inputs from agencies
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