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Widespread heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain threatened nearly 180 million people — more than half the U.S. population — in a path stretching from the southern Rocky Mountains to New England, the National Weather Service said Saturday night. It warned people to brace for a string of frigid days.
"The snow and the ice will be very, very slow to melt and won't be going away anytime soon, and that's going to hinder any recovery efforts," said Allison Santorelli, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
President Donald Trump had approved emergency declarations for at least a dozen states by Saturday, with more expected to come. The Federal Emergency Management Agency pre-positioned commodities, staff and search and rescue teams in numerous states, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said
"We just ask that everyone would be smart – stay home if possible," Noem said.
As crews in some southern states began working to restore downed power lines Saturday, officials in some eastern states issued final warnings to residents.
"We are expecting a storm the likes of which we haven't seen in years," New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said Saturday while announcing restrictions on commercial vehicle travel and a 35 mph (56 kph) speed limit on highways. She added: "It's a good weekend to stay indoors."
More than 13,000 flights were canceled Saturday and Sunday across the U.S., according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.
Sunday's cancellations, which are still growing, already are the most on any single day since the coronavirus pandemic, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
All Saturday flights were canceled at Will Rogers International Airport in Oklahoma City, and all Sunday morning flights also were called off, as officials aimed to restart service Sunday afternoon at Oklahoma's biggest airport.
Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, a major hub, saw more than 700 departing flights canceled on Saturday and nearly as many arriving flights called off. Disruptions were also piling up at airports in Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville, and Charlotte, North Carolina.
By late Saturday afternoon, nearly all departing flights scheduled to leave Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport on Sunday had already been canceled.
A warning about the biggest ice storm in a decade
Officials in Georgia advised people in the state's northern regions to get off the roads by sundown Saturday and be prepared to stay put for at least 48 hours.
Will Lanxton, the senior state meteorologist, said Georgia could get "perhaps the biggest ice storm we have expected in more than a decade" followed by unusually cold temperatures.
"Ice is a whole different ballgame than snow," Lanxton said. "Ice, you can't do anything with. You can't drive on it. It's much more likely to bring down power lines and trees."
Crews began treating highways with brine after midnight Saturday, with 1,800 workers on 12-hour shifts, Georgia Department of Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry said.
"We're going to do what we can to keep the ice from sticking to the roads," McMurry said. "This is going to be a challenge."
After earlier putting 500 National Guard members on standby, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp announced Saturday that he was deploying 120 of them to northeast Georgia "to further strengthen our response in the hardest hit areas."
After sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to move into the Northeast, dumping snow exceeding 1 foot (30 centimeters), the weather service predicted.
"Please, if you can avoid it, do not drive, do not travel, do not do anything that can potentially place you or your loved ones in danger," New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Saturday. "Instead, I urge every New Yorker who can to put a warm sweater on, turn on the TV, watch ‘Mission Impossible’ for the 10th time, above all to stay inside."
