US Winter Storm Disrupts Holiday Travel
A deadly winter storm blanketed a huge swath of the US on Friday, grounding flights, turning highways into ice rinks and knocking out power to tens of thousands preparing for the Christmas holiday.
CHICAGO: A deadly winter storm blanketed a huge swath of the US on Friday, grounding flights, turning highways into ice rinks and knocking out power to tens of thousands preparing for the Christmas holiday.
At least eight people in five states were killed by the dangerous road conditions since the storm formed near the Rocky Mountains and moved slowly eastward. The powerful system dumped as much as two feet of snow in some areas and knocked down trees and power lines with winds gusting as high as 100km per hour.
After pounding Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois and Missouri on Thursday, the storm was centered over the Great Lakes and Appalachians on Friday morning and was expected to reach New England on Saturday. Smaller systems also snarled travel in California, Nevada and Oregon while high winds grounded and delayed flights in New York.
Thankfully, on Friday, the busiest travel day of the year, skies were clear in Chicago - where an estimated 266,000 people will pass through the major aviation hub. More than 600 flights were cancelled on Thursday at Chicago's O'Hare and Midway airports as the storm dumped freezing rain and a dusting of snow on runways and whipped up dangerously strong winds.
Hundreds more were cancelled at smaller airports like Detroit, Minneapolis, and Kansas City. Nearly 500 flights had been cancelled by afternoon on Friday, primarily due to high winds in New York and San Francisco.