More than 850,000 customers across large parts of the United States were without electricity on Sunday, while over 10,000 flights were cancelled as a massive winter storm brought heavy snow, ice, and dangerously cold temperatures to eastern and southern states.
As the storm spread across the eastern two-thirds of the country, power outages continued to rise. Data from PowerOutage.us showed that by Sunday morning, more than 850,000 customers had lost electricity. Tennessee was the worst affected, with at least 290,000 outages, while Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana each recorded over 100,000 customers without power. Other impacted states included Kentucky, Georgia, Virginia, and Alabama.
Air travel was severely disrupted. According to FlightAware, more than 10,200 flights scheduled for Sunday were cancelled, following more than 4,000 cancellations on Saturday. Washington, D.C.’s Ronald Reagan National Airport said all flights were cancelled for the day. Delta Air Lines said it would operate a reduced schedule, depending on storm conditions, and had already adjusted flights in Atlanta, Boston, and New York while moving de-icing and ground-support teams to southern airports.
The National Weather Service forecast heavy snow from the Ohio Valley to the Northeast through Monday morning, with parts of New England expected to receive up to 18 inches. Much of the Southeast and parts of the Mid-Atlantic were forecast to see rain and freezing rain, followed by bitterly cold temperatures and dangerous wind chills stretching from the southern plains to the Northeast.
President Donald Trump described the storms as “historic” and approved federal emergency disaster declarations for multiple states, including South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, and West Virginia. Seventeen states and Washington, D.C., declared weather emergencies, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem urged Americans to take precautions, warning of extremely cold conditions and advising people to stock up on fuel and food. Meanwhile, the Department of Energy issued emergency orders allowing grid operators in Texas and the mid-Atlantic region to deploy backup power resources to prevent widespread blackouts.
Electric grid operators nationwide stepped up precautions to avoid rotating outages. Dominion Energy, which serves Virginia and hosts a large concentration of data centers, said the storm could rank among the most significant winter events to affect its operations if ice forecasts hold.
