N.C. reprises traffic jam as South ices up

Snowplows clear Interstate 75/85 in Atlanta on Wednesday as most people stayed off the roadways.
Snowplows clear Interstate 75/85 in Atlanta on Wednesday as most people stayed off the roadways.

ATLANTA - Drivers got caught in traffic jams and abandoned their cars Wednesday in North Carolina in a replay of what happened in Atlanta just two weeks ago, as another wintry storm iced highways across the South and knocked out electricity to more than a half-million homes and businesses.

While Atlanta’s highways were unclogged, thousands of cars lined the slippery, snow-covered interstates around Raleigh, N.C., and short commutes turned into hours-long journeys.

As the storm glazed the South with snow and freezing rain, it also pushed northward along the Interstate 95 corridor, threatening to drop more than a foot of snow today in areas of the mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

Nearly a dozen traffic deaths were blamed on this week’s treacherous weather, and nearly 3,300 airline flights nationwide were canceled Wednesday.

Atlanta’s airport, one of the world’s busiest, expected only about 300 flights Wednesday after more than two-thirds of arrivals and departures were canceled. A spokesman for Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Reese McCranie, said that accounted for the largest number of cancellations in recent memory.

At Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field in Little Rock, seven flights from and eight flights to Atlanta or Charlotte had been canceled by noon Wednesday. Two flights to Charlotte left before noon, but later flights were canceled.

Airport spokesman Shane Carter said the weather was “crippling” air transportation in the region. He said only half of Delta’s scheduled flights to Atlanta would resume today. Friday’s schedule should be unaffected, however, he said.

Carter said he wasn’t sure how many people were affected by the canceled flights but that Delta tried to call passengers beforehand to warn them of canceled flights.

In Highfill at Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport, seven flights to and 13 flights from Atlanta or Charlotte had been canceled before noon Wednesday. Airport Director Scott Van Laningham said he did not know how long the cancellations would continue.

The situation in North Carolina on Wednesday was similar to what happened in Atlanta on Jan. 28. As snow started to fall around midday, everyone left work at the same time despite warnings from officials to stay home because the storm would move in quickly.

Soo Keith of Raleigh left work a little after noon, thinking she would have plenty of time to get home before the worst of the snow hit.

Instead, Keith drove a few miles in about two hours and decided to park and start walking. With a blanket draped over her shoulders, she made it home more than four hours later.

“My face is all frozen, my glasses are all frozen, my hair is all frozen,” the mother of two and former Chicago resident said as she walked the final mile to her house. “I know how to drive in the snow. But this storm came on suddenly, and everyone was leaving work at the same time. I don’t think anybody did anything wrong; the weather just hit quickly.”

Raleigh spokesman Jayne Kirkpatrick had no estimate of how many vehicles had been abandoned and couldn’t say whether motorists might be stranded on the road overnight.

“If we find anyone that is stranded that needs water or food or whatever we can do for them,” city crews will help, Kirkpatrick said.

North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory urged people to charge their cellphones, find batteries for radios and flashlights, and stay off roads, because the storm was expected to drop nearly a foot of snow in places such as Charlotte.

“Stay smart. Don’t put your stupid hat on at this point in time,” McCrory said. “Protect yourself. Protect your family. Protect your neighbors.”

More snow was forecast overnight, with up to 3 inches possible in Atlanta and much higher amounts in the Carolinas.

Ice combined with wind gusts up to 30 mph snapped tree limbs and power lines. More than 200,000 homes and businesses lost electricity in Georgia, South Carolina had about 245,000 power failures, and 100,000 people in North Carolina were without power. Some people could be in the dark for days, officials said.

As he did for parts of Georgia, President Barack Obama declared a disaster in South Carolina, opening the way for federal aid. Forecasters predicted parts of the state could record more than an inch of ice by tonight.

“We’re getting a lot of freezing rain throughout the entire state right now,” Derrec Becker, a spokesman for the South Carolina Emergency Management Division, said early Wednesday. “It’s pretty bad.”

ATLANTA ANTICIPATION

In Atlanta, which was caught unprepared by the last storm, streets and highways were largely deserted Wednesday. Before the first drop of sleet even fell, area schools announced they would be closed Tuesday and Wednesday. Many businesses shut down, too.

In normally busy downtown areas of Atlanta, almost every business was closed except for a pharmacy.

The scene was markedly different from the one Jan. 28, when thousands of children were stranded all night in schools by less than 3 inches of snow and countless drivers abandoned their cars after getting stuck in bumper-to bumper traffic for hours and hours.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal,who was widely criticized over his handling of the last storm, sounded an upbeat note this time.

“Thanks to the people of Georgia. You have shown your character,” he said.

As the day wore on, the greater Atlanta metropolitan region, home to about 5 million people, was expecting at least a half-inch of ice - enough, Georgia Power officials said, to threaten more power lines.

Aaron Strickland, Georgia Power’s chief emergency executive, said Tuesday night that residents should “be prepared for days” without power.

To prepare for the possibility of a large number of failures in the Atlanta region, hundreds of local and out of-state power crews had assembled at staging areas like the Atlanta Motor Speedway and the Six Flags White Water park in Cobb County, where portable showers, trailers with beds and feeding tents were set up to serve 500 workers.

Highways across Georgia were closed Wednesday because of icing and downed power lines, including U.S. 1, according to the state’s Department of Transportation website. Georgia state troopers said they responded to more than 250 crashes between 2 a.m. and 9 p.m. Wednesday. At least 32 people were injured.

The snow gave Georgians a rare opportunity to go sledding, but emergency responders said at least seven people were hospitalized after sled crashes throughout the state.

A 17-year-old boy in Forsyth County slammed into a fire hydrant with his upper torso and a 7-year-old boy in Ball Ground was hospitalized with a fractured skull after hitting a tree in his backyard, authorities said.

In Cleveland, Ga., four people in their late teens and early 20s were sledding in a kayak when it crashed into a pole, Fire Chief Ricky Pruitt said. One of the victims suffered leg injuries, and a woman was knocked unconscious and lost several teeth. The other two refused treatment.

DEATHS MOUNT

In an warning issued early Wednesday, National Weather Service called the storm “catastrophic … crippling … paralyzing … choose your adjective.” It proved deadly, killing at least 11 people Tuesday and Wednesday.

Three people were killed when an ambulance careened off an icy West Texas road and caught fire Wednesday. A 50-year-old Georgia man was found dead Wednesday after he fell on ice overnight in Butts County, said Deal, the Georgia governor.

On Tuesday, four people died in weather-related traffic accidents in North Texas, including a Dallas firefighter who was knocked from an I-20 ramp and fell 50 feet. In Mississippi, two traffic deaths were reported. In North Carolina, a woman was killed Tuesday when the car she was riding in went off a snow-covered road.

Meanwhile, a chain-reaction crash shut down the four-lane Mississippi River bridge on Interstate 20 at Vicksburg, Miss., for much of the day as a tanker leaked flammable liquid into the river. No one was injured in the 4 a.m. crash, and the bridge was reopened by 8 p.m.

For the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast, the heavy weather was the latest in an unending drumbeat of storms that have depleted cities’ salt supplies and caused school systems to run out of snow days.

New York City was expecting 6 inches of snow today, and Boston could see around 8 inches. Forecasters said the Philadelphia area could get a foot or more, and Portland, Maine, may see 8 or 9 inches.

In Washington, which was expecting up to 8 inches of snow, Mayor Vincent Gray declared the city’s first snow emergency since 2010. The Office of Personnel Management announced that federal offices would be closed because of the weather today.

Entergy Arkansas said Wednesday that it was sending a crew to help restore power in Virginia. Spokesman Sally Graham said 50 linemen plus support personnel from across the state would leave Little Rock today in answer to a call for help from the Dominion Virginia utility. Entergy expected the work would involve eight to 10 trucks.

Information for this article was contributed by Christina A. Cassidy, Kate Brumback, Ray Henry, Jeff Martin, Jay Reeves, Russ Bynum and staff members of The Associated Press; by Kim Severson, Alan Blinder, John Peragine and Cindy Howle of The New York Times; by Brian K. Sullivan, Jim Polson, Cheyenne Hopkins, Kristin Jensen, Duane D. Stanford and Mary Schlangenstein of Bloomberg News; and by Emily Walkenhorst of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/13/2014

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