By Kate Payne and Russ Bynum | Associated Press
A major storm spread heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain across parts of the Florida Panhandle, Georgia and the coastal Carolinas on Wednesday after breaking snow records in Texas and Louisiana, treating the region to unaccustomed perils and wintertime joy.
Winter weather warnings were in effect for big cities like Jacksonville, Florida, which expected to see snow, sleet and accumulating ice into Wednesday, and Atlanta, where streets remained icy in the storm’s wake. The Jacksonville International Airport planned to remain closed until midday Wednesday. Schools canceled classes in many areas across at least eight states, and government offices were closed Wednesday.
Tallahassee woke to snow-dusted palms and icy streets Wednesday. Lina Rojas and her dachshund Petunia, who was wearing a vest and “pup gloves” on her paws, had never seen snow like this — far more than the dusting Florida’s capital got in 2018.
Dangerous below-freezing temperatures with even colder wind chills were settling in for much of the week across the Deep South, where at least three deaths have been attributed to the cold weather. A blast of Arctic air also plunged much of the Midwest and the eastern U.S. into a deep freeze. The heavy snow and ice grounded hundreds of flights and classrooms were closed for more than a million students more accustomed to hurricane dismissals than snow days.
Even the interstate closes
The snow and ice also closed highways — including more than 100 miles (161 kilometers) of the nation’s southernmost interstate, I-10, in Louisiana and Florida. That included highways around Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Lake Ponchartrain, where elevated roads and bridges are prone to freezing.
“Louisiana, if you can, just hang in there,” Gov. Jeff Landry said, warning that Tuesday’s “magical” snow day would dangerous Wednesday as conditions worsened.
“I would love to end this winter-weather event with the minimum amount of damage, and certainly no loss of life,” Landry said.
A live camera feed from the state’s Department of Transportation showed desolate stretches of interstates and highways Wednesday morning. Crews spread pallets of salt across elevated portions, and Landry thanked the state of Arkansas for sending snow plows, dump trucks, salt spreaders and semi trucks with brine tankers.
Dawn found highways and surface roads across most of Georgia deserted, with traffic cameras showing streetlights glinting off an icy glaze in many locations. The dull roar of rush hour freeway traffic was absent from suburban Atlanta. The danger of travel in a region generally unaccustomed to such weather was evident in Savannah, where it snowed overnight and a jackknifed truck closed part of the interchange between Interstate 16 and Interstate 95.
The airport in Charleston was closed, along with the massive 2 1/2 mile (4 kilometer) Ravenel Bridge that carries about 100,000 vehicles a day between the city and areas up the coast. It could be a while before the bridge reopens — after an ice storm in 2014, crews discovered that water freezes on the bridge’s cables and then falls in windshield-shattering chunks as it thaws, so they have to wait for a full melt before traffic can return.
Who needs a beach when there’s snow
Some people took advantage of the Ravenel bridge’s steep overpasses, turning them into impromptu sled runs. And on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, children sledded down snow-covered sand dunes near where the Wright Brothers first took flight, while adults tried to navigate waist-high snow drifts that had piled up on the Kitty Hawk Pier.
The barrier islands received an unusual walloping — as much as nine inches (23 centimeters) in some parts, so much that the ferry system suspended service.
“It’s maybe once every 10 years that we get a good one like this,” said Ryan Thibodeau, 38, co-owner of Carolina Designs Realty, a vacation rental company.
“We’ve got snow drifts that are three-feet deep in some places just because there’s so much wind,” Thibodeau said. “And of course, we don’t have a lot of snow plows down here because we’re not used to this.”
Snow fell in Houston and prompted the first ever blizzard warnings for several coastal counties near the Texas-Louisiana border. The snow also covered the white-sand beaches of normally sunny vacation spots, including Gulf Shores, Alabama, and Pensacola Beach, Florida. In South Carolina, snow covered the sand from Hilton Head Island all the way up to the giant Ferris wheel in Myrtle Beach, creating more opportunities to turn boogie boards into snow sleds.
People made the most of it — from a snowball fight on a Gulf Shores beach to sledding in a laundry basket in Montgomery, Alabama, to pool-tubing down a Houston hill. In Metairie, Louisiana, several nuns enjoyed throwing powdery snow at a priest. One man donned skates and grabbed his stick in New Orleans, practicing his hockey moves on the ice on Canal Street.
Record-setting snow days
It had been more than a decade since snow last fell on New Orleans. Tuesday’s rare snowfall set a record in the city, where 10 inches (25 centimeters) fell in some places, far surpassing its record of 2.7 inches (6.8 centimeters) set Dec. 31, 1963, the National Weather Service said.
“Wow, what a snow day!,” the weather agency said in a social media post. “It’s safe to say this was a historic snowfall for much of the area.”
In New Orleans, urban skiing was attempted along Bourbon Street, a priest and nuns engaged in a snowball fight outside a suburban church, snowboarders shredded behind a golf cart, and people went sledding down the snow-covered Mississippi River levees on kayaks, cardboard boxes and inflatable alligators. In City Park, people used Louisiana’s famous Spanish Moss as hair for snowmen.
High school teacher David Delio and his two daughters glided down the levee on a yoga mat and a boogie board.
“This is a whiteout in New Orleans, this is a snow-a-cane,” Delio said. “We’ve had tons of hurricane days but never a snow day.”
Mobile, Alabama, hit 5.4 inches (13.7 centimeters) Tuesday, topping the city’s one-day snowfall record of 5 inches (12.7 centimeters), set Jan. 24, 1881, and nearing its all-time snowfall record of 6 inches (15.5 centimeters) in 1895, the weather service said.
Flight cancellations, states of emergency and fatalities
More than 1,300 flights to, from or within the U.S. were already canceled Wednesday morning and more than 900 were delayed, according to online tracker FlightAware.com. Both Houston airports planned to resume flight operations on Wednesday morning after they were suspended Tuesday. At New Orleans Louis Armstrong International Airport, where nearly every flight was canceled Tuesday, many airlines planned to resume operations Wednesday.
More than 132,000 customers were without power across the region Friday morning, including about 50,000 in Georgia and 43,000 in Florida, according to the website Poweroutages.us.
The NWS said up to 4 inches (10 centimeters) of snow fell in the Houston area. Texas transportation officials said more than 20 snowplows were in use across nearly 12,000 lane miles in the Houston area, which lacks its own city or county plows.
Ahead of the storm, governors in Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and even Florida — the Sunshine State — declared states of emergency and many school systems canceled in-school activities Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Believe it or not, in the state of Florida we’re mobilizing snowplows,” said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
In the Texas capital, two people died in the cold weather, according to a statement from the city of Austin. No details were provided, but the city said emergency crews had responded to more than a dozen “cold exposure” calls. Officials said one person has died from hypothermia in Georgia.
Meanwhile, many more Americans shivered up north. A state of emergency was declared in at least a dozen New York counties with up to 2 feet (60 centimeters) of lake-effect snow and extreme cold expected around Lake Ontario and Lake Erie through Wednesday.
Santa Ana winds returning to Southern California
In Southern California, where blazes have killed at least 28 people and burned thousands of homes, dry conditions and strong Santa Ana winds remained a concern.
Associated Press writers Sarah Brumfield in Cockeysville, Maryland; Jack Brook in New Orleans; Sara Cline in Key Largo, Florida; Julie Walker in New York; Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut; Bruce Shipkowski in Toms River, New Jersey; Corey Williams in Detroit; Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Florida; Nadia Lathan in Austin, Texas; Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia; Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina; Jeff Martin in Kennesaw, Georgia; Jeff Amy and Charlotte Kramon in Atlanta; Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama; Makiya Seminera in Raleigh, North Carolina; Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee; and Lisa Baumann in Bellingham, Washington, contributed.