Summary
- Washington, Jan 25 : A massive winter storm has left more than half a million people without electricity and forced thousands of flight cancellations across the United States, as forecasters warn of “historic” conditions sweeping much of the country.
- The National Weather Service cautioned that the storm would bring heavy snow, ice, and dangerously cold temperatures across the eastern two-thirds of the nation, with “crippling to locally catastrophic impacts” expected in the Southeast.
- With record cold temperatures and dangerous wind chills forecast to spread into the Great Plains by Monday, officials and grid operators are scrambling to prepare for what could be one of the most disruptive winter storms in recent years.
Washington, Jan 25 : A massive winter storm has left more than half a million people without electricity and forced thousands of flight cancellations across the United States, as forecasters warn of “historic” conditions sweeping much of the country.
By Sunday morning, over 500,000 customers were without power, with Mississippi, Texas, and Tennessee each reporting more than 100,000 outages. Louisiana and New Mexico also faced widespread disruptions. The National Weather Service cautioned that the storm would bring heavy snow, ice, and dangerously cold temperatures across the eastern two-thirds of the nation, with “crippling to locally catastrophic impacts” expected in the Southeast.
President Donald Trump approved federal emergency disaster declarations in 12 states, including South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, and North Carolina, urging residents to stay safe and warm. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have declared weather emergencies, according to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem advised Americans to stock up on food and fuel, while assuring that utility crews were working to restore power quickly.
The Department of Energy issued emergency orders allowing grid operators in Texas and the mid-Atlantic region to deploy backup generation resources, even overriding environmental restrictions, to limit blackouts. Dominion Energy, which operates in Virginia, warned that the storm could be among the largest ever to affect its network of data centers.
Air travel has been severely disrupted. Flight tracking service FlightAware reported more than 9,600 cancellations scheduled for Sunday, following 4,000 cancellations on Saturday. Delta Air Lines adjusted its schedules in Atlanta and along the East Coast, JetBlue canceled about 1,000 flights through Monday, and United Airlines proactively canceled flights in areas expected to be hardest hit.
With record cold temperatures and dangerous wind chills forecast to spread into the Great Plains by Monday, officials and grid operators are scrambling to prepare for what could be one of the most disruptive winter storms in recent years.
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