A deadly blizzard with bone-chilling winds and
potentially record-breaking snowfall has slammed the eastern US, with
local media reporting at least eight deaths.
Key points:
- Storm expected to affect about 85 million people and could cause more than $1.4 billion in damage
- Officials say worst is yet to come, residents urged to stay indoors
- Flights, public transport cancelled and national monuments closed
Officials have urged millions in the storm's path to seek shelter, warning the worst is yet to come,
Forecasters
have predicted the storm could dump more than 61 centimetres of snow in
Washington DC and the surrounding area by late Saturday, bringing life
to a wintry halt as residents ride out the rough weather.
Six people died in North Carolina, one in Virginia and one in Kentucky, CNN reported.
Reuters said at least six people had been killed in car crashes on icy roads in North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee.
"The
real teeth of this #winterstorm will be after midnight thru early Sat
afternoon. Heavy snow, increasing winds, lightning threat," the National
Weather Service (NWS) tweeted.
A blizzard warning was in effect for a large swathe of the eastern United States, from Washington up to New York.
The
storm is expected to affect about 85 million Americans — about one
quarter of the inhabitants of the United States — and before it is all
over, it could cause more than $US1 billion ($1.4 billion) in damage,
NWS officials said.
Several southern states, meanwhile, were
already hit by snow and sleet — unusual for the region — with tens of
thousands without power.
In Kentucky, thousands of motorists
became stranded overnight along a 56-kilometre ice-slickened stretch of
highway, remaining trapped on the road early Saturday (local time)
Frantic
shoppers emptied grocery store shelves in preparation for the storm,
dubbed "Snowzilla" by some US media, and schools and government offices
in Washington were all closed.
"I think it's going to be a
disaster," Sharonda Brown, a nurse, said as she waited for a car with a
full cart of groceries at a Washington supermarket stormed by shoppers.
Winds were expected to pick up overnight, prompting Washington's police chief Cathy Lanier to urge residents to stay indoors.
"With
the increasing winds and increasing snow accumulation, now we're going
to see more and more people stranded," she told CNN.
Crews were out clearing the roads throughout the US capital, while others turned to shovels.
Among them was 28-year-old William Duren, who was clearing a sidewalk outside a downtown Washington hotel.
"Usually
when we see snow in the forecast, it turns out to be only an inch or
so. They always exaggerate on TV," he said, before adding that this
time, the forecasters appeared to be right.
"It's a doozy," Mr Duren said.
Flights, public transport cancelled, snowball fight postponed
Several
thousand flights were cancelled because of the storm, while officials
in Washington took the unusual step of closing down the city's rail and
bus system from Friday night until Monday morning.
The Metrorail —
the second busiest underground train network in the United States after
New York — serves about 700,000 customers a day in Washington, Maryland
and Virginia.
If the blizzard leaves as much snow in Washington
as forecast, it could surpass a record set in 1922 by a storm that
dumped 71 inches over three days and killed 100 people after a roof
collapsed at a theatre.
US
Capitol Police have said they were lifting a decades-old sledding ban,
but the national monuments, Capitol building and Smithsonian museums
were all closed.
Even a massive snowball fight in Washington's
Dupont Circle neighbourhood, which nearly 2,000 people said they would
attend on Facebook, had to be postponed from Saturday to Sunday due to
the storm's ferocity.
Snow and sleet has already hit the southern
states of Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, West Virginia
and Virginia, with 18 states under blizzard or other winter storm
warnings, the Weather Channel reported.
"We're having a lot of
accidents," said Pat McCrory, Governor of North Carolina, where two of
the fatalities were reported to have occurred.
Nearly 95,000 people were without power in the state, emergency officials said on Twitter.
CNN reported that nearly 133,000 were without power across the south-east.
Further
north in New York, the storm is expected to dump up to a foot of snow
from early Saturday to midday Sunday (local time), the NWS reported.
"Unless urgent, stay off the roads," Mayor Bill de Blasio told a news conference.
The frigid weather marks a stark departure from what has otherwise been a mild winter along the eastern seaboard.
On
Christmas Eve, the NWS reported that temperatures in New York's Central
Park peaked at 22 degrees Celsius, the warmest ever for the day since
records began in 1871.
Reuters/AFP
