US winter storm leads to more than 1,00,000 power outages, thousands of flight cancellations

Washington: More than 4,000 flights were canceled in the U.S. on Saturday ahead of a monster winter storm that has already cut power to more than 100,000 utility customers ​as far west as Texas, and threatened to paralyze eastern states with heavy snowfall.

Forecasters said snow, sleet and freezing ‌rain, accompanied by dangerously frigid temperatures, would sweep the eastern two-thirds of the nation ⁠on Sunday and into next week.

Calling the ‌storms "historic," President Donald Trump on Saturday approved federal emergency disaster declarations in South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, and West Virginia.

"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, the Department of Homeland Security said.

"We do have tens of thousands of people in affected states in the South that have lost power. We have utility crews that are working to restore that as quick as possible," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said late ‌Saturday afternoon.

The number of ‌power outages continued to rise. As of 6:30 pm ET, more than 1,30,000 US customers had lost electricity, the bulk of them in Texas and Louisiana, according ⁠to PowerOutage.com.

The U.S. National Weather Service warned of an unusually expansive and long-duration winter storm that will bring widespread, heavy ice accumulation in the southeast U.S. and cited "crippling to locally catastrophic impacts."

Weather service forecasters predicted record cold temperatures and dangerously cold wind chills descending further into the Great Plains ⁠region of the U.S. by Monday.

As of 6:42 p.m. EST, more than 4,000 ⁠U.S. flights scheduled for Saturday had been canceled, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. More than ‌9,000 U.S. flights originally set for Sunday also have been canceled, the website indicated.

Major U.S. ‌airlines warned passengers to stay alert for abrupt flight changes and cancellations. In an update on its website on Saturday morning, Delta Air said it “continues to make schedule adjustments due to Winter Storm Fern,” with additional cancellations in the morning for Atlanta ‍and along the East Coast, including Delta hubs in Boston and New York City.

The airline said it was relocating experts from cold weather hubs to support de-icing and baggage teams at several southern airports.

JetBlue said as of Saturday morning it had canceled about 1,000 flights through Monday, with additional cancellations possible, as it was “closely monitoring” forecasts for the storm. U.S. electric grid operators on Saturday stepped up precautions to avoid rotating blackouts.

Dominion Energy, whose Virginia operations include the largest collection of data centers in the world, said if its ice forecast holds, it could be among the largest-ever winter events to affect the utility's operations.

Noem, speaking at a ​news conference about U.S. government preparations for the ‌storm, warned Americans to take precautions.

"It’s going to be very, very cold," Noem said. "So we'd encourage everybody to stock up on fuel, stock up on food, and we will get through this together."