Winter storm cripples US Atlantic coast
A deadly winter storm gripped the southeastern United States on Wednesday, crippling travel, grounding flights, knocking out power to 363,000 customers and encasing magnolia and palmetto trees in ice.
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 east Arkansas to much of the Atlantic coast, the US National Weather Service said. The storm is expected to sock the northeastern region in the next two days with up to 38 cm 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 20 cm of frozen precipitation for Charlotte, North Carolina, and 23 cm were forecast for Spartanburg, South Carolina, meteorologists said.
More than 2.5 cm 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 snowplow went off a North Carolina highway into a ditch.
Todd Pekks, a chef at Duke University, was just 800 meters 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.
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.
About 6,700 US 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.
Reuters
(China Daily 02/14/2014 page10)
