Associated Press
(AP) — A dangerous winter storm combining high winds and ice was sweeping through parts of the U.S. Southeast on Sunday, knocking out power, felling trees and fences and coating roads with a treacherous frigid glaze.
Tens of thousands of customers were without power in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. More than an inch of snow fell per hour in some parts of the Carolinas, Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia, according to the National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center.
The storm was making air travel extremely difficult in some parts of the South. The nation’s hardest-hit airport — Charlotte Douglas International — remained open around dawn Sunday, the airport said in a weather briefing. But more than 1,000 Sunday flights in Charlotte have been cancelled – more than 80% of the airport’s Sunday schedule, according to the flight tracking service flightaware.com. Charlotte is a major hub in the South for American Airlines.
In Atlanta, where Delta Air Lines operates it main hub, more than 300 Sunday flights have been canceled.
Conditions were expected to continue to deteriorate later Sunday, and possible ground stops were possible at airports in the Washington, D.C. area, the Federal Aviation Administration said in its air traffic control plan for Sunday.
Parts of North Carolina were under a winter storm warning until Monday morning. Raleigh was experiencing a mix of frozen precipitation.
Frank Pereira, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said to expect a “significant ice storm across portions of the central Carolinas,” including the Charlotte metropolitan area.
The North Carolina Department of Transportation said Sunday that Interstate 95 was closed in both directions between Lumberton and Fayetteville due to low-hanging power lines. Freezing rain had been reported in the area. Transportation officials advised drivers to take a detour and said they hope to reopen the road by 2 p.m.
More than 250,000 customers were without power by late morning Sunday, according to poweroutage.us. Especially hard hit was Georgia, with nearly 110,000 outages. South Carolina had nearly 90,000 customers without power. The remaining outages were in Florida, North Carolina and Tennessee.
Crews pretreated roadways in Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia but officials still urged people to stay off them unless travel was necessary. The Tennessee Highway Patrol said in a tweet that some roads in East Tennessee were snow-covered and that troopers were working several accidents due to ice.
