WASHINGTON-
A deadly ice storm stranded scores of people on slick roads and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of US homes as winter-weary Americans dug in against Mother Nature’s latest blow.
The weather has caused at least 13 deaths in the region, including three people killed when an ambulance transporting a patient skidded off an icy road in Carlsbad, Texas.
More than 3,700 flights due to take off Thursday were cancelled across the United States due to the wintry blast, including well over half of flights at the busiest US airport, Atlanta’s Hartfield International, airline monitors said.
The National Weather Service began warning days ago that a “mammoth dome” of Arctic air would settle over the eastern United States to form a “paralyzing ice storm.”
“The ice accumulations remain mind-boggling, if not historical,” it said, warning that more than an inch (2.5 centimetres) of ice could fall from Georgia to South Carolina.
The massive storm — which stretched from Alabama to Virginia — was also expected to dump as much as a foot (30 centimetres) of snow.
It was set to strengthen as it climbed northward along the eastern seaboard Thursday, with snowfall totals topping 18 inches by the time the storm reached the far north-eastern New England region.
Accidents and abandoned cars caused massive traffic jams in North Carolina, with the usually temperate cities of Raleigh and Charlotte transformed into ice- and snow-covered parking lots.
North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory urged residents to stay indoors — even if it means sleeping at work — rather than risk the roads.
“If you’re in a safe warm place, stay in a safe warm place,” McCrory told a national broadcasting news channel.
“We’ve already had two fatalities and we don’t want to see more.”
Many Atlanta residents stayed home, after the gridlock caused by a much weaker storm two weeks ago stranded thousands of people.
It took days to clear the highway of abandoned vehicles at the time.
President Barack Obama declared states of emergency in Georgia and South Carolina in order to deploy federal resources to help deal with the storm.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it was also in contact with state emergency offices in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia to assess their assistance needs as the storm builds.
Now more than ever do I realize that I will never be content with a sedentary life, that I will always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere.
If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.
Traveling tends to magnify all human emotions.
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