OKLAHOMA CITY, USA: Around 12,000 flights across the US set to take off over the weekend were canceled as a monster storm started to wreak havoc Saturday across much of the country and threatened to knock out power for days and snarl major roadways with dangerous ice.
Roughly 140 million people, or more than 40 percent of the US population, were under a winter storm warning from New Mexico to New England. The National Weather Service forecast warned of widespread heavy snow and a band of catastrophic ice stretching from east Texas to North Carolina. By midday Saturday, a quarter of an inch (0.6 centimeters) of ice was reported in parts of southeastern Oklahoma, eastern Texas and portions of Louisiana.
“What really makes this storm unique is, just following this storm, it’s just going to get so cold,” said Allison Santorelli, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “The snow and the ice will be very, very slow to melt and won’t be going away anytime soon, and that’s going to hinder any recovery efforts.”
All Saturday flights were canceled at Will Rogers International Airport in Oklahoma City, and all Sunday morning flights also were called off, as officials aimed to restart service Sunday afternoon at Oklahoma’s biggest airport. The airport was nearly deserted Saturday morning, with only a few TSA agents and a couple of travelers remaining inside the departures side.
Governors in more than a dozen states sounded the alarm about the turbulent weather ahead, declaring emergencies or urging people to stay home.
“Please use these final hours to be prepared, to make sure that you have blankets and warmth and food to make it through this storm,” Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger said Saturday at a news conference. “And every Virginian should stay off the road as of this evening, all day Sunday, and at least into the morning on Monday.”
The Texas Department of Transportation on Saturday posted images of snow-covered highways in the suburbs north of Dallas. Ice and sleet that hit northern Texas overnight moved toward the central part of the state on Saturday. By mid-morning Saturday, ice had formed on roads and bridges in a third of Mississippi’s counties.
Little Rock, Arkansas, was covered with sleet and snow Saturday morning, giving Chris Plank doubts about whether he would be able to make a five-hour drive to Dallas for work on Sunday. While some snow was a yearly event, he could only recall three ice storms in the previous 20 years that he had lived in Little Rock, and that potential ice concerned him the most.
“All of the power lines are above ground, so it doesn’t take very much to end up in the dark,” Plank said Saturday morning.
Forecasters say damage, especially in areas pounded by ice, could rival that of a hurricane.
More than 112,000 outages were reported across the country Saturday morning, including about 55,000 in Texas, 13,700 in Louisiana and nearly 11,800 in New Mexico, according to poweroutage.us.
As of 12:30 p.m. ET, more than 4,000 flights were canceled Saturday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. More than 8,000 flights were called off for Sunday. Among the hardest hit airports were Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, Nashville International Airport and Charlotte Douglas International Airport.
Angela Exstrom was supposed to fly back to Omaha, Nebraska, from a trip in Mexico, but she learned her Saturday flight out of Houston had been canceled. So instead, she is going back via Los Angeles.
“If you live in the Midwest and travel in the winter, stuff can happen,” she said.
After sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to move into the Northeast, dumping about a foot (30 centimeters) of snow from Washington through New York and Boston, the weather service predicted. Temperatures reached minus 29 F (minus 34 C) just before dawn in rural Lewis County and other parts of upstate New York after days of heavy snow.
Bracing for biggest ice storm in a decade
Officials in Georgia advised people in the state’s northern regions to get off the roads by sundown Saturday and be prepared to stay put for at least 48 hours.
Will Lanxton, the senior state meteorologist, said Georgia could get “perhaps the biggest ice storm we have expected in more than a decade” followed by unusually cold temperatures.
“Ice is a whole different ballgame than snow,” Lanxton said. “Ice, you can’t do anything with. You can’t drive on it. It’s much more likely to bring down power lines and trees.”
Crews began treating highways with brine after midnight Saturday, with 1,800 workers on 12-hour shifts, said Georgia Department of Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry.
“We’re going to do what we can to keep the ice from sticking to the roads,” McMurry said. “This is going to be a challenge.
Frigid temperatures and ice
Utility companies braced for power outages because ice-coated trees and power lines can keep falling long after a storm has passed.
The Midwest saw wind chills as low as minus 40 F (minus 40 C), meaning that frostbite could set in within 10 minutes. The minus 36 F (minus 38 C) reading in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, on Saturday morning was the coldest in almost 30 years.
In Bismarck, North Dakota, where the wind chill was minus 41 (minus 41 Celsius), Colin Cross was bundled up Friday in long johns, two long-sleeve shirts, a jacket, hat, hood, gloves and boots as he cleaned out an empty unit for the apartment complex where he works.
“I’ve been here awhile and my brain stopped working,” Cross said.
Workers from The Orange Tent Project, a Chicago nonprofit that provides cold weather tents and other supplies to unhoused individuals throughout the city, went out to check on those that did not or could not seek shelter.
“Seeing the forecasted weather, I knew we had to come out and do this today,” said CEO Morgan McLuckie.
Government prepares to respond
President Donald Trump said via social media on Friday that his administration was coordinating with state and local officials and “FEMA is fully prepared to respond.”
Nine states have requested emergency declarations, according to a FEMA briefing document released Saturday. The declarations can unlock federal emergency resources. Trump on Friday approved emergency declarations for South Carolina and Virginia, and requests from Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia were still pending as of Saturday morning.
Church, Mardi Gras and classes canceled
Churches moved Sunday services online, and the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, decided to hold its Saturday night radio performance without fans. Mardi Gras parades in Louisiana were canceled or rescheduled.
Schools superintendents in Philadelphia and Houston announced that schools would be closed Monday.
Some universities in the South canceled classes for Monday, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Mississippi’s main campus in Oxford.
Around 12,000 flights canceled as major winter storm bears down across much of the US
https://arab.news/mvw73
Around 12,000 flights canceled as major winter storm bears down across much of the US
- Roughly 140 million people, or more than 40 percent of the US population, were under a winter storm warning
- As of 12:30 p.m. ET, more than 4,000 flights were canceled Saturday and more than 8,000 flights were called off for Sunday
Bangladesh votes in world’s first Gen Z-inspired election
- Ousted PM Hasina’s Awami League party banned
- BNP, Jamaat in close race with big economic, geopolitical stakes
DHAKA: For years under former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s opposition had little presence on the streets during elections, either boycotting polls or being sidelined by mass arrests of senior leaders. Now, ahead of Thursday’s vote, the roles have reversed.
Hasina’s Awami League is banned, but many young people who helped oust her government in a 2024 uprising say the upcoming vote will be the Muslim-majority nation’s first competitive election since 2009, when she began a 15-year-rule.
The Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is widely expected to win, although a coalition led by the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami is putting up a strong challenge. A new party driven by Gen-Z activists under the age of 30 has aligned with Jamaat after failing to translate its anti-Hasina street mobilization into an electoral base.
BNP chief Tarique Rahman told Reuters his party, which is contesting 292 of the 300 parliamentary seats at stake, was confident of winning “enough to form a government.”
Analysts say a decisive result in the February 12 vote, instead of a fractured outcome, is vital for restoring stability in the nation of 175 million after Hasina’s ouster triggered months of unrest and disrupted major industries, including the garments sector in the world’s second-largest exporter.
The verdict will also affect the roles of rival regional heavyweights China and India in the South Asian nation.
“Opinion polls suggest the BNP has an edge, but we must remember that a significant portion of voters are still undecided,” said Parvez Karim Abbasi, executive director at Dhaka’s Center for Governance Studies.
“Several factors will shape the outcome, including how Generation Z — which makes up about a quarter of the electorate — votes, as their choices will carry considerable weight.”
Across Bangladesh, black-and-white posters and banners bearing the BNP’s “sheaf of paddy” symbol and Jamaat’s “scales” hang from poles and trees and are pasted on roadside walls, alongside those of several independent candidates. Party shacks on street corners, draped in their emblems, blare campaign songs.
It marks a sharp contrast with past elections, when the Awami League’s “boat” symbol dominated the landscape.
Opinion polls expect the once-banned Jamaat, which had opposed Bangladesh’s India-backed 1971 independence from Pakistan, to have its best electoral performance even if it does not win.
China’s influence increases as India’s wanes
The election verdict will also influence the roles of China and India in Bangladesh in coming years, analysts have said. Beijing has increased its standing in Bangladesh since Hasina was seen as pro-India and fled to New Delhi after her ouster, where she remains.
While New Delhi’s influence is on the wane, the BNP is seen by some analysts as being relatively more in tune with India than the Jamaat.
A Jamaat-led government might tilt closer to Pakistan, a fellow Muslim-majority nation and a long-standing rival of Hindu-majority India, analysts say. Also, Jamaat’s Gen-Z ally has said “New Delhi’s hegemony” in Bangladesh is one of its main concerns and its leaders met Chinese diplomats recently.
Jamaat, which calls for a society governed by Islamic principles, has said the party is not inclined toward any country.
BNP’s Rahman has said if his party formed the government it would have friendly relations with any nation that “offers what is suitable for my people and my country.”
Bangladesh, one of the world’s most densely populated countries with high rates of extreme poverty, has been hit by high inflation, weakening reserves and slowing investment, which has pushed it to seek large-scale external financing since 2022, including billions of dollars from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Corruption is the biggest concern among the 128 million voters, followed by inflation, according to a survey by Dhaka-based think tanks Communication & Research Foundation and Bangladesh Election and Public Opinion Studies.
Analysts say Jamaat’s clean image is a factor in its favor, much more than its Islamic leanings.
“Voters report high intention to participate, prioritize corruption and economic concerns over religious or symbolic issues, and express clear expectations for leaders who demonstrate care, competence and accountability,” said the survey.
Nevertheless, BNP’s Rahman, son of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, is seen as the frontrunner to lead the next government. But if the Jamaat-led coalition emerges ahead, its chair, Shafiqur Rahman, could be in line for the top job.
Mohammad Rakib, 21, who is set to vote for the first time, said he hoped the next government would allow people to express their views and exercise their franchise freely.
“Everyone was tired of (Hasina’s) Awami League. People couldn’t even vote during national elections. People had no voice,” he said. “I hope the next government, whoever comes into power, will ensure this freedom of expression.”
