Almost 4,000 flights were cancelled in the US on Saturday ahead of a monster winter storm that has already cut power to thousands of utility customers as far west as Texas, and threatened to paralyse eastern states with heavy snowfall.
Forecasters said snow, sleet and freezing rain, accompanied by dangerously frigid temperatures, would sweep the eastern two-thirds of the nation on Sunday and into next week.
Calling the storms “historic”, US President Donald Trump on Saturday approved federal emergency disaster declarations in South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, and West Virginia.
“We will continue to monitor, and stay in touch with all States in the path of this storm. Stay Safe, and Stay Warm,” Trump wrote in a social media post.
Several states and the District of Columbia have declared weather emergencies.
The US National Weather Service warned of an unusually expansive and long-duration winter storm that will bring widespread, heavy ice accumulation in the southeast US and cited “crippling to locally catastrophic impacts”.
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