Icy storm system wreaks havoc as it rumbles towards eastern seaboard

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/08/ice-storm-us

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A powerful storm system that spread hazardous snow, sleet and freezing rain widely across the midsection of the US rumbled towards the densely populated eastern seaboard on Sunday, promising more of the same.

Forecasters said the potent system already blamed for numerous power outages, thousands of weekend flight cancellations and a handful of deaths elsewhere, has Virginia and other mid-Atlantic states in its sights before hitting the north-east. Icy conditions were expected to last through the rest of the weekend from Texas to Ohio to Tennessee. And officials warned a major ice storm was possible in Virginia's Appalachian region.

In Virginia, a state emergency management spokeswoman, Laura Southard, said the storm had the potential to be a "historic ice event". "This forecast is very concerning to us," Southard said. "I've worked multiple disasters, but I've never worked an ice storm with a forecast like this. It's just really important for everybody to take extra precautions."

Forecasters said the storm caused freezing rain and icy conditions in parts of Tennessee as it surged across that state late Saturday and early Sunday. It has also been blamed for plunging temperatures as a cold front sweeps down from the north on the jet stream.

Bob Nations Jr, director of the emergency operations command centre for the Memphis area, said early on Sunday that ice coating roads, bridges and overpasses caused several multi-vehicle crashes. Police in Memphis, meanwhile, urged motorists to stay at home altogether if they could avoid travel. Scattered power outages affected more than 3,000 people, emergency and utility officials said.

In Texas earlier, icy and treacherous sections of Interstate 35 north of Dallas were closed for hours at a time after tractor-trailers had trouble climbing hills, crashes occurred and vehicles stalled, authorities said. Ice up to 4in thick was reported on one interstate in Texas at the height of the storm there. And about 75,000 customers in the Dallas area went without power for a time Saturday, down from a peak of more than 270,000 earlier. Oklahoma utilities reported more than 7,500 power outages across the state and western Arkansas.

The weather forced the cancellation of countless events, including Sunday's Dallas Marathon, which was expected to draw 25,000 runners, some of whom had trained for months, and the St Jude Marathon in Memphis, expected to include 20,000.

About 7in of snow fell in north-east Arkansas and the Missouri boot heel, according to the National Weather Service in Memphis, and 8-9in fell in parts of southern Indiana. The storm dumped a foot of snow and more in some areas of Illinois, with police scrambling to respond to dozens of accidents, and forced scores of schools to remain closed.

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