More than 4,000 flights were cancelled across the US on Saturday as a massive winter storm cut power to over 210,000 customers, reaching as far west as Texas
and threatening to cripple eastern states with heavy snowfall. Forecasters warned that snow, sleet and freezing rain, coupled with dangerously cold temperatures, would blanket the eastern two-thirds of the US on Sunday and persist into the week. Describing the storms as “historic,” President Donald Trump on Saturday approved federal emergency disaster declarations for South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana and West Virginia. Also Read | Winter Storm Leads to Thousands of Flight Cancellations Across US: Check Full List "We will continue to monitor, and stay in touch with all States in the path of this storm. Stay Safe, and Stay Warm," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have declared weather emergencies, according to the Department of Homeland Security. "We do have tens of thousands of people in affected states in the South that have lost power," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said. "We have utility crews that are working to restore that as quick as possible." Power outages continued to climb, with around 217,000 customers across the US without electricity as of 2 am EST (0700 GMT) on Sunday, most of them in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Tennessee, according to PowerOutage.com. The Department of Energy on Saturday issued an emergency order allowing the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to activate backup power generation at data centres and other major facilities to help curb blackouts across the state. The National Weather Service warned of an unusually large and long-lasting winter storm expected to cause widespread, heavy ice accumulation across the Southeast, with “crippling to locally catastrophic impacts” likely. Weather service forecasters predicted record-low temperatures and dangerously frigid wind chills moving into the Great Plains by Monday. As of 10:21 p.m. EST, over 4,000 US flights scheduled for Saturday had been canceled, according to FlightAware, with more than 9,400 Sunday flights also called off. Major US airlines cautioned passengers to expect sudden flight changes and cancellations. On Saturday morning, Delta Air Lines reported ongoing schedule adjustments, including additional cancellations for Atlanta and East Coast cities such as Boston and New York. The airline said it was moving staff from cold-weather hubs to support de-icing and baggage operations at several southern airports. JetBlue announced that it had canceled roughly 1,000 flights through Monday, with the possibility of further cancellations. United Airlines said in an email that its storm preparations included proactively canceling some flights in areas expecting the worst weather. US electric grid operators also ramped up precautions on Saturday to prevent rotating blackouts. Dominion Energy, which manages Virginia’s extensive network of data centers, warned that if the ice forecast holds, the storm could be among the largest winter events in the utility’s history. At a news conference on federal storm preparations, Governor Kristi Noem urged Americans to take precautions. “It’s going to be very, very cold,” Noem said. “We encourage everyone to stock up on fuel and food, and we will get through this together.”
