AP
Dallas
More than 9,000 flights across the US set to take off over the weekend have been cancelled as a major storm expected to wreak havoc across much of the country threatens to knock out power for days and snarl major roadways.
Roughly 140 million people were under a winter storm warning from New Mexico to New England. The National Weather Service forecast warns of widespread heavy snow and a band of catastrophic ice stretching from east Texas to North Carolina.
Forecasters say damage, especially in areas pounded by ice, could rival
that of a hurricane.
Ice and sleet that hit northern Texas overnight were moving toward the central part of the state on Saturday, the National Weather Service in Fort Worth said.
“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 24
degrees Celsius.
Snow and sleet continued to fall in Oklahoma.
After sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to move into the Northeast, dumping about a foot or 30 centimetres of snow from Washington through New York and Boston, the weather service predicted. Temperatures reached minus 34 degrees Celsius just before dawn in rural Lewis County and other parts of upstate New York after days of heavy snow.
Governors in more than a dozen states sounded the alarm about the turbulent weather ahead, declaring emergencies or urging people to stay home.
Texas Gov Greg Abbott told residents on the social media platform X that the state Department of Transportation was pre-treating the roads and told residents, “Stay home if possible.”
More than 3,300 flights were delayed or cancelled Saturday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. Nearly 6,000 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 cancelled. 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.
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 Celsius, meaning that frostbite could set in within 10 minutes.
In Bismarck, North Dakota, where the wind chill was minus 41 degrees 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.
The federal government put nearly 30 search and rescue teams on standby.
