A four-year-old child and at least seven other people have died as a
potentially record blizzard paralysed road, rail and air travel across
the east coast of the US.
States of emergency have been announced in Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia. Thousands of flights have been cancelled and officials told people not to drive.
Most of the fatalities happened on icy roads. The four-year-old boy
died in North Carolina when the pickup truck his family was travelling
in spun out of control on a busy highway on Friday afternoon.
Officials say 85 million people are in the storm’s path, with 30 million of them facing blizzard conditions.
A thick layer of snow covered Washington DC on Saturday and residents were advised to stay indoors throughout the weekend.
Washington and Baltimore
face the worst of the weather and could lie under two to three feet of
snow, driven by winds of 30 to 50 miles per hour, by the time the storm
subsides on Saturday afternoon, according to the National Weather
Service (NWS).
Barack Obama is to remain at the White House, officials said. The US federal government closed down at midday on Friday.
The full force of the storm could dump enough snow on Washington and
surrounding suburbs in Virginia and Maryland to eclipse the 17.8 inches
(45.2 cm) that fell during the “Snowmageddon” storm of 2010. It may even rival the “Knickerbocker” storm of 1922, when a record 28 inches fell.
“Either way, we’re looking at a significant event,” said the NWS meteorologist Frank Pereira.
People have been told to find a safe place and stay there until the
storm has passed. Some shops were left with empty shelves as residents
prepared for a weekend indoors by stocking up on food and water. Streets
were empty and restaurants, bars and supermarkets closed.
“This has life-and-death implications and all the residents of the
District of Columbia should treat it that way,” Washington’s mayor,
Muriel Bowser, said at a Friday press conference.
More than 7,100 airline flights were canceled across the country on
Fridacopy and Saturday, according to the tracking website FlightAware.com.
Amtrak modified its services on train routes along its busy north-east
corridor.
Steady snow was falling in south-eastern Pennsylvania,
including Philadelphia, early on Saturday. The storm is forecast to
head north toward New York City later in the day, with Philadelphia and
New York expected to get 12 to 18 inches of snow.
— NASA Goddard Images (@NASAGoddardPix) January 23, 2016
Looking massive - latest view of #blizzard2016 over the eastern US, captured earlier today: https://t.co/U1bsUao68v pic.twitter.com/NhVpRoRWcV— Mark Robinson (@StormhunterTWN) January 23, 2016
The Washington Monument is slowly disappearing into the driving snow. @weathernetwork @TheWeatherNetUS pic.twitter.com/uQjIfxevlU
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