Snows, icy rain cause havoc in southeastern US
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A deadly winter storm brought heavy snow, freezing rain and a possibly historic accumulation of ice to the southeastern US yesterday, causing hundreds of thousands of power outages and treacherous driving conditions, meterologists said.
The worsening storm stretched from eastern Texas to the Carolinas, and was likely to reach the middle Atlantic states later in the day, National Weather Service meteorologist Roger Edwards said.
Power outages spread rapidly as temperatures dropped.
More than 110,000 Georgia Power customers were without electricity yesterday, with most outages reported in metropolitan Atlanta. Some customers may have to wait up to a week for power to be restored, said spokeswoman Amy Fink.
“It appears the storm could have an even greater impact than we originally had predicted,” she said.
The wintry mix had already caused two weather-related traffic deaths in Mississippi and three in northern Texas earlier in the week, authorities said. The state Highway Patrol in South Carolina had responded to 273 weather-related calls for service overnight.
Nearly 3,000 US flights were canceled and hundreds more delayed early yesterday, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware.com.
Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta was hardest hit, with more than 800, or 69 percent of flights, canceled. Delta Air Lines and AirTran, the two dominant carriers there, had the most cancellations.
Up to 2 centimeters of ice was expected in a broad section of Georgia, including metropolitan Atlanta. Some areas could see more than 2.5cm.
The Interstate 20 corridor from north central and northeastern Georgia into South Carolina would be among the hardest hit by icy conditions, said meteorologist Edwards.
Snowfall totals were expected to be unusually high in the region, with nearly 20cm forecast for Charlotte, North Carolina, and 23cm for Spartanburg, South Carolina.
Hundreds of schools and government offices across the south were closed yesterday, and shelters were opened in Georgia and Alabama to help those stranded by the storm.
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