Millions of people hunkered down as a major winter storm pummeled much of central and eastern half of the country. Thousands of flights were canceled, and thousands reported power outages in dangerously cold conditions.
More than 13,000 US flights were canceled from Saturday through Monday, as an “unusually expansive” winter storm descended across much of the eastern half of the country.
More flights within, into or out of the US are scheduled to be canceled on Sunday, with disruption approaching levels not seen since the coronavirus epidemic, aviation analytics firm Cirium said.
Heavy snowfall, sleet and freezing rain threatened nearly 180 million people between the Rocky Mountains and New England, the National Weather Service (NWS) said on Saturday night. That’s more than half of the entire populationof the US.
“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 at the National Weather Service.
“By the time this event winds down late Monday, it will leave a trail of more than 2,000 miles of wintry precipitation, in a nearly continuous path, from New Mexico to Maine,” the National Weather Service said.
US President Donald Trump also approved emergency declarations for multiple states to receive assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Here’s what you need to know about the flight cancellations:
- All Saturday and Sunday morning flights were canceled at Will Rogers International Airport in Oklahoma City
- 700 departing flights and half of arriving flights were canceled at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport
- Flights disrupted at airports in Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville and Charlotte, North Carolina
- All departing flights Sunday canceled at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport
- Over 4,000 flights canceled across US on Saturday
- Over 9,000 flights canceled across US on Sunday