Daily MailA biting Winter storm has blasted the South and Midwest with ice and snow – leaving more than a quarter of a million people without power, grounding hundreds of flights and causing treacherous conditions for travelers.
Two people have died in traffic accidents on roads in Texas, where temperatures plunged below freezing on what residents dubbed ‘Ice Friday’.
Schools in the state canceled classes as temperatures plunged below freezing and thousands of shoppers jammed stores to buy milk, pet food and other supplies.
A quarter of a million Dallas residents are without power as well as 35,000 people in Arkansas.
American Airlines and American Eagle, based in Fort Worth, canceled nearly 1,000 flights due to bad weather in Texas, while Southwest Airlines canceled almost 90 flights.
Joy: Jaidyn Richardson, 9, adjusts her hat after sledding down a hill at an Evansville, Indiana golf course
Staying warm: Amy Grace walks her dog, Evelyn, with Aaron Mihalevich in Springfield, Missouri on Friday
Storm: A tree felled by ice rests near a house on Friday in Richardson, Texas. Winter storm and ice warnings are in effect through much of today for parts of six states in the Midwest
Cold snap: Laura Perez scrapes ice from her car as she prepares to drive to work in Dallas in icy conditions on Friday morning. The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for the area until Friday night
Trouble: Vehicles are pushed up a slick hill in Fort Worth, Texas. The ice has already claimed two lives
Stuck: Residents work together to clear the roads on East Lancaster Avenue in Fort Worth, Texas
Earlier this week, many in Texas were basking in spring-like temperatures hitting the 80s, but by Thursday, Texas was facing the same wintry blast that’s hitting much of the U.S., bringing frigid temperatures, ice and snow.
The National Weather Service issued winter storm and ice warnings through much of Friday for parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana.
Some parts of the Midwest were expected to see several inches of snow.
The system has already dumped one to two feet of snow in parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin and draped many communities in skin-stinging cold.
It forced cancellations in places far more accustomed to snow: Officials in Rapid City, South Dakota, said the weather was too cold for ice skating, and temperatures in Montana and Idaho fell below minus 25 degrees.
Wrap up warm! An Accuweather map shows the snow and rain that will be sweeping across the U.S.
Focus on Texas: A map shows the worst ice storms expected to hit the Lone Star state today
Storm: This NOAA satellite image taken early Friday shows clouds streaming from the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys into the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, associated with a strong Arctic front
Blown away: A gust of wind collapses Joseph Mezo’s umbrella as he walks to work in Dallas on Friday morning
Grounded: Snow removal equipment clears the wet sleet on the ramp area at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport on Friday. More than 1,000 flights have been canceled from the airport
Exasperating: A TSA officer checks flight schedule at the Love Field Airport in Dallas during the winter storm in Dallas on Friday. The board shows scores of canceled flights
Grounded: An air traveler stranded at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport sleeps during a flight delay
The city of St. Louis opened its first cold-weather shelter of the season and warned residents to dress in layers inside and outside if need be.
After the storm passes, temperatures in parts of the central and western U.S. will be 10 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit through the weekend as a cold air mass spreads through those regions, the National Weather Service said.
At a Dallas Home Depot, manager James McGilberry said the store was already running out of firewood and ice melt on Thursday afternoon, as freezing rain and wind began hitting the region.
Residents were preparing for a storm that threatened to slicken highways, freeze power lines – and leave them stranded through the weekend.
‘It’s almost like a Black Friday,’ McGilberry said, ‘but I guess we’ll call it an Ice Friday.’
A 29-year-old driver, Chase Brandenburgh, was killed just after midnight in Arlington when his car hit an 18-wheeler, which police blamed on the ice roads.
Storm: Christine Busik shovels her gravel driveway in Bloomington, Indiana during sleet and rain
Perseverance: Jim Cline removes the snow from Christmas trees for shoppers in Indianapolis
No escape: Even California felt the frost. Here, Tulare County Agricultural and Standards inspector Ben Yosako cuts through frozen oranges after collecting them for future inspection in Traver on Friday
Bundled up: Ashley Leonard and her daughter Veda, 4, walk to a neighbor’s house for pancakes along an icy street in Fort Worth, Texas on Friday as they wrapped up against ‘Ice Friday’
That’s just cold: Olivia Aurs, 9, dumps a handful of snow on her three year-old brother, Alex Aurs’ head as they play in the snow in the Lakeside Terrace subdivision in Evansville, Indiana
Enjoying it: Mark Vogel gives his daughter Parker, 7, a push on the sled he used when he was a kid on the icy streets in Fort Worth, Texas on Friday as temperatures plunged
Chris Schein, Oncor’s director of communications, says a massive power outage in downtown Dallas is expected to last hours.
‘When you have an ice storm like this the majority of outages are caused by tree limbs falling into power limbs or people running into power poles,’ he told the Dallas Morning News.
‘And as this [precipitation] continues to fall, lines fall. And the weight of the ice puts pressure on those trees, and eventually the limbs give way. Its not unusual for outages to occur hours and days after an event.’
In the Dallas area, agencies and residents are still haunted by the fiasco of a frozen Super Bowl week two years ago, when an inadequate response to a winter storm crippled the region and left visitors stranded on impassable highways.
Warning: A sign warns drivers of ice on the Dr. Martin Luther King Bridge in Springfield, Missouri
Oops: Passersby help a pickup get up the incline on the Lyon Street Bridge Friday morning in Albany, Oregon
Slow moving: Motorists and emergency vehicles try to pass through snow and ice in Fort Worth
Daunting: A car makes its way down a sleet-coverd hill in Little Rock, Arkansas on Friday morning
Smash: Police and tow trucks remove wrecked vehicles off the road Friday morning in Austin, Texas
Terrifying: Police in Odessa, Texas respond to a rolled over vehicle that crashed on the slick highway
This time, all of North Texas mobilized before an expected half-inch of freezing rain began to come down. Temperatures are forecast to stay below freezing after the rain passes, meaning residents will have to contend with icy roads through the weekend.
Dan Shoemaker, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told the Dallas Morning News: ‘I don’t think the problems are over, even though the precipitation pretty much is.’
He explained that temperatures this evening are going to reach a bitter cold – around 18 degrees (-8 degrees Celsius) – before rising slightly on Saturday morning.
In preparation, the North Texas Tollway Authority had its 79 trucks stationed Thursday to cover 850 miles of highways with sand, and the city of Dallas went to a condition known as ‘Ice Force One’, readying its own army of dump trucks to handle city roads.
Sticking together: A small herd of cows graze in Brown County near Nashville, Indiana during the storm
Brrr! Nola the arctic fox curls up in the snow at Denver Zoo, which was closed due to extreme cold Thursday
Winter: Scott Asperheim of Duluth, Minnesota clears the sidewalk around his home from several feet of snow
Holding on: Jane Giles, 15, gets some help from her sister as she skates on a sidewalk in Richardson, Texas
There’s snow stopping him! Jackson McDonald, 11, slides on an icy road in Richardson, Texas
Frozen: Lauren Blanco, 23, plays with her four-month-old dog, Fitzgerald, at the Park Central Square in Springfield, Missouri on Thursday. It was Fitzgerald’s first time seeing snow
Dallas and Fort Worth school districts lead a list of suburban and outlying North Texas school systems, colleges and universities that canceled their Friday classes.
Numerous government offices also closed, but the Dallas Marathon’s organizers had not made a decision whether to cancel Sunday’s race, which draws thousands of runners from inside and outside North Texas.
Debbie Jones was at a supermarket collecting the ingredients for a warm winter meal in advance of Friday.
‘I’m going to make a gumbo, then try and lay it in for tomorrow,’ Jones said.
Hidden: Men try to extricate their car from a tree at the DART Transit Station in northeast Dallas
Frosting: Roads in this northwest Oklahoma City neighborhood had a light coating of snow by Thursday
Waiting it out: Jack Fontenot rubs his hands to warm them after coming out of a tent at a homeless encampment in Oklahoma City. Some of the people who live here refuse to leave their tents for a shelter
Having fun: Nick Morgan gives his son Parker, 6, a push down a short hill in Walla Walla, Washington
In West Texas, many truckers had already pulled off Interstate 27 on Thursday, said Leilani Pierce, a manager at a Flying J Travel Plaza in Lubbock.
Students at Oklahoma State University were evicted by school officials from a makeshift tent community they set up ahead of Saturday’s rivalry football game against the University of Oklahoma.
Debbie McCarthy, the university’s athletics coordinator of special events, told the Tulsa World that officials were worried about propane heaters in use starting a fire.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2519364/Texas-braces-Ice-Friday-snow-sweeps-U-S–canceling-hundreds-flights-leaving-250-000-power.html#ixzz2mkLtVWA0
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Yep, I’m in Dallas now and as a native of Buffalo, NY, I can say these people down South have no idea how to deal with this. They’ve never invested in a snow plow nor do they know what salt is. It’s hilarious from someone like me growing up in the North.
(Angel-NYC, I know you can agree with me on this. lol)
My whole apartment parking lot here in North Dallas is a skating rink and the cars can’t even get up a very small hill. Their tires just roll over it. My car is a covered in a sheet of ice. I have neighbors from Wisconsin who are laughing with me at what they have to do to deal with this, as we all know this would be a piece of cake in the North. And to close schools over it, man what a shame. But since they don’t have the plows and the salt, I can’t really blame them, as there’s not much they can do until the weather warms up hopefully in another day or so.
Meanwhile Florida seems to be the only state unaffected. And by the way, since when does it snow in Dallas? I thought this place was like Florida? Not under 60 all year round. What’s with the freezing temperatures? HAARP? I can only imagine.
By the way, that global warming is a BITCH! lol
Whoops! I mean climate change (in which case the global warming supporters can escape any criticism and just make a broad claim about it, since the words “warming” and “cooling” are not in there. Way to deflect that blow, guys! Good job! Just like that war on terror without mentioning any certain terror in specific.)
It is Hilarious and VERY Scary/Dangerous with high school/college (and some adult) idiots who have no Clue as to how to drive in it and think it’s Fun Time. Let’s Play…Skid…do Doughnuts…Oh, Boy!… Then there are the “spaghetti bowls”, over-passes, bridges…and they don’t know to even Slow Down. Oh, and forget about “Black Ice”…”Huh? What’s that?” When I grew up in College Station, we got 1/2 inch of snow and everything shut down. We weren’t exposed to it. We never learned how to deal with it, much less Drive in it. It’s a joke for anyone who’s lived w/ snow, but beware. The locals are Dangerous. Their playtime mentality and incompetence Kill people.
Yea I know. Tell me about it.
😉
Well if folks don’t know how to handle a big freeze in Dallas, then they surely can’t handle a big freeze (such as two weeks ago) in far west Texas, which never heard of snow plows, tire chains, and where a little ice destroys half the electric poles (three days…three days! without power in the Big Bend area…a first for most folks, just like three straight days of single digits back in Feb. 2011 destroyed about 70 percent of home plumbing pipes, mostly PVC! Now PEX is the next big thing for do-it-yourselfers…)
Yup, when I grew up there, the only place that would see snow (occasionally) was the upper panhandle. Yet, in 2004, 2008, and 2011 there was snow in Galveston.
No thanks to your wonderful friends at HAARP!
With studies/development at TX A& M and TX Tech.
Dammit, my wife is stuck in Durant, Oklahoma for the night due to the weather. Ugh! The Oklahoma and Texas border is basically blocked off or at a standstill. At least she is with her co-workers.
Her best bet is to stay put. Try not to worry, NC. At least you know that she’s safe and not on the road. (I’m hoping she got a motel room there)
Yea the Choctaw Casino out of all places. Ugh! There goes our money. lol
Think Positive. Putting prayers out to Hubby’s Chactow ancenstors that she Wins. 🙂
There’s that entirely abnormal and manipulated upside-down bell curve on the jet stream again. What are the elite and government scum up to that they have to divert everyone’s attention?
Yep and if you look at the HAARP radar, you’ll notice it all follows the pattern as well. It’s so blatantly obvious, it’s like an open secret.
I guess in the summer they just dry us out with drought and in the winter they freeze us out with arctic ice and winds. Gotta find some way to depopulate us.
Oh yea and Barry is headed to Mendela’s funeral to give his regards to his terrorist buddy who passed away recently, if you haven’t heard.
Glad he cares about us Americans. You know, the ones who he is supposed to support during times of crisis.
Oh well. Who cares? It’s not like We the People need Barry Soetoro, Hussein, Obama, Onygala, Mendela anyways. You know, that Kenyan guy who has more last names than a Mexican immigrant. lol
Here in western South Carolina we are getting crazy weather .
Two weeks ago it was down in the low 20’s at night and mid 40’s for daytime highs and we had a dusting of snow….WAY TOO EARLY for that, That shit don’t happen until Feb or March for us.
Then it flip-flopped…we had temps in the 60’s most all week and high of 78 today..(friday that is)……and here now at 5 am sat morning its 68 degrees with rain setting in…WTF?? with falling temps today.
The reports are saying a cool front with rain for the next 5 days…
That’s the scary part for us because with the converging systems it sets us up for possible Tornadoes,…yeah we get those down here,..lots of them at times. .
So far so good they aren’t saying “danger” yet,…but when this front comes over the Blue Ridge Mnts., anything can happen.
Odd how the weather can be so different across this big land….and it is big……from where I’m at to Henry’s area its 2700 miles,…from here to you NC,….995 so says the road atlas.
Guys looks like we all are in for the long haul with a rough winter this year…..Try to stay warm and keep your eyes open for danger,..dont get caught with yer pants down……it would be just like the PTB’s to pull some crap during this time..