US winter storm forces cancellation of over 13,000 flights nationwide
More than 4,000 flights across the United States were called off on Saturday as airlines braced for a major winter storm that has already knocked out electricity for over 160,000 customers, with outages reported as far west as Texas.
Forecasters warned that a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain, alongside dangerously low temperatures, is expected to sweep across the eastern two-thirds of the country from Sunday and linger into next week.
President Donald Trump described the system as “historic” and, on Saturday, approved federal emergency disaster declarations for South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana and West Virginia.
In a message posted on Truth Social, he said the federal government would remain in contact with states along the storm’s path, urging people to stay safe and keep warm.
The Department of Homeland Security said 17 states, as well as Washington, D.C., had declared weather emergencies.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said tens of thousands of residents in affected southern states were without power and that utility crews were working to restore service as quickly as possible.
Power cuts continued to climb through Saturday night.
By 10.17pm EST, more than 160,000 customers were without electricity, most of them in Louisiana and Texas, according to PowerOutage.com.
The US Department of Energy said it had issued an emergency order allowing the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to tap backup generation at data centres and other large facilities, in an effort to curb blackouts.
The National Weather Service cautioned that the storm is unusually large and long-lasting, with the potential for widespread and heavy ice build-up across the southeastern United States.
It warned impacts could be severe, with some areas facing crippling to locally catastrophic conditions.
Forecasters also projected record cold and dangerous wind chills pushing deeper into the Great Plains by Monday.
Disruption in the air was already extensive.
By 10.21pm EST, more than 4,000 flights scheduled for Saturday had been cancelled, according to FlightAware.
More than 9,400 flights planned for Sunday were also called off.
Major carriers told passengers to expect last-minute changes.
Delta Air Lines said it was continuing to adjust schedules, adding more cancellations for Atlanta and along the East Coast, including Boston and New York City, and redeploying specialists from cold-weather hubs to help with de-icing and baggage operations at several southern airports.
JetBlue said it had scrapped about 1,000 flights through Monday, with further cancellations possible.
United Airlines said it had been proactively cancelling some services in locations expected to be hit hardest.
With the freeze intensifying, grid operators stepped up preparations to avoid rolling outages.
Dominion Energy, which serves Virginia, home to what it said is the world’s largest cluster of data centres, warned that if ice accumulates as forecast, the storm could rank among the biggest winter events to affect its operations.
Speaking at a briefing on federal preparations, Noem urged residents to take the threat seriously.
“It’s going to be very, very cold,” she said, encouraging Americans to stock up on fuel and food.
Reuters
