United States of america: As winter weather intensifies in the United States, more than 1,700 flights across the country were canceled while highways remained slippery under a layer of snow. At least 2 people died on unpaved roads in Texas, while two law officers were seriously injured. Officials said that one of the policemen was crushed under a truck.
As the snowstorm moved east on Tuesday, watches and warnings stretched from the western edge of Texas to West Virginia. The federal Weather Forecasting Center warned that several rounds of mixed precipitation — including freezing rain and sleet — were in store for many areas through Wednesday, meaning some areas could be hit multiple times.
Emergency responders raced to hundreds of auto collisions throughout Texas and Republican Gov. Greg Abbott urged people to stay off the streets. One person died in a predawn pileup Tuesday in Austin, officials said. A 45-year-old man also died Monday night when his SUV slammed into a highway guardrail near Dallas and rolled off an embankment, according to the Arlington Police Department.
air traffic remains affected
According to tracking service FlightAware, more than 900 flights from major US airport hubs Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and more than 250 from Dallas Love Field were canceled or delayed. In Dallas-Fort Worth, more than 50% of Tuesday’s scheduled flights were canceled as of Tuesday afternoon.
Dallas-based Southwest Airlines canceled more than 560 flights and delayed more than 350 on Tuesday, FlightAware reported. Nearly 7,000 power outages were recorded in Texas as of Tuesday morning, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said after a briefing in Austin on the worsening conditions. He stressed that the outages were due to factors such as snow or fallen trees on power lines, not the performance of the Texas power grid that buckled for days during a deadly winter storm in 2021.
Fleets of emergency vehicles were pulled out of 1,600 roads affected by the cold. In Texas, a sheriff’s deputy who stopped to help the driver of an 18-wheeler going off an icy highway on Tuesday was struck by another truck, according to the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. Was pinned under one of the tires. The deputy was pulled from the wreckage about 45 minutes after the crash on State Highway 130 and taken to a hospital, where he underwent surgery Tuesday afternoon, officials said. Officials said the deputy is expected to survive.
In another wreck, a Texas state trooper was seriously injured after being struck by a driver who lost control of his vehicle, said Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety.
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“The roadways are very dangerous right now. We cannot stress this enough, Abbott said. As snow and hail blanketed Memphis, Tennessee, Memphis-Shelby County Schools announced they would cancel classes Wednesday due to freezing rain and dangerous road conditions. There are approximately 100,000 students in the school system. The University of Memphis said it would announce plans for Wednesday’s classes by 6 a.m. tomorrow.
State of emergency declared in many areas
In Arkansas, Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency on Tuesday because of the blizzard. In his announcement, Sanders cited “the potential for multiple power lines” and said road conditions had created a backlog of deliveries by commercial drivers. One of Arkansas’ main routes – Interstate 40 – was snow-covered and “extremely dangerous” in the Forrest City area on Tuesday, according to the city’s fire department.
Department Chief Jeremy Sharp told by telephone that the department responded to two bad wrecks and about 15 other accidents Tuesday morning. He said that in many accidents, the drivers speed up on the highway but face problems when they reach the bridge. “They hit the ice and they start to disintegrate,” he said. “When I-40 is closed like this, there can be hours of waiting,” said John Gadberry, who lives in Colt, Arkansas, not far from the highway. “I-40 is usually one of the first things to freeze because of its slight elevation.”
The Arkansas Department of Transportation announced that as of late Tuesday, I-40 had been cleared and traffic had resumed. The interstate connects Little Rock, Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee. The storms began Monday as part of “multiple rounds” of freezing rain expected through Wednesday in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Mark Chenard.
What do people say about disruptions?
“Generally light to moderate freezing rain resulting in some significant snow accumulations,” Chenard said. According to Chenard, “We’re potentially expecting a quarter-inch or more of snow accumulation as far south as Austin, Texas, from Dallas to Little Rock, Arkansas, toward Memphis, Tennessee, and even That’s getting closer to Nashville, Tennessee.”
Flights were hampered after Southwest’s downturn in December began with a winter storm, but continued after most other airlines had recovered. Southwest canceled about 16,700 flights in the last 10 days of the year, and the US Department of Transportation is investigating. The weather service has issued a winter storm warning for a large area of Texas and parts of southeastern Oklahoma and a snow storm warning for western Tennessee through central Arkansas.
A winter weather advisory is in place for the rest of Arkansas and Tennessee, and for Kentucky, West Virginia and southern parts of Indiana and Ohio. Schools and colleges in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas on Tuesday announced plans to close or go to virtual learning.
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