Snow and ice coat southern U.S.
Snow falling in Louisiana during the pre-dawn hours prompted the closure of multiple interstates as a winter weather system took aim at other states across the Deep South, forecasters said.
The National Weather Service on Tuesday issued winter storm warnings in parts of Louisiana and Mississippi. Winter weather advisories covered most of Alabama and much of Georgia. Several school districts across the region cancelled classes.
Hundreds of flights were cancelled at Texas airports — including Houston, San Antonio and Austin — where frigid temperatures left runways dangerously icy. Forecasters warned mariners along the Texas coast to be on guard for gale-force winds.
Snow was falling Tuesday in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and was expected to move into Alabama and Georgia later in the day.
In Louisiana, state officials said both lanes of Interstate 49 in the Shreveport area were closed early Tuesday. Parts of I-20 and I-220 were also closed.
“We’ve got numerous crashes on the interstates and surface roads,” Louisiana State Trooper Glenn Younger said Tuesday from Bossier City, Louisiana, just across the Red River from Shreveport.
“You can’t see the black ice — it’s invisible,” said Younger, who had been driving on roads since 5 a.m. Tuesday and could feel the back end of his patrol car begin to
slide at times.
“You want to just barely touch the brakes in that situation,” he said. “A lot of people get scared and they want to jam on the brakes and that makes it worse.”
What looked like about two centimetres of snow covered the hood of Glenn Springfield’s truck when he went outside Tuesday morning in northeast Louisiana, he said. Springfield, a spokesman for the Ouachita Parish Sheriff’s Office, said the worst highway conditions were about 160 kilometres west of him — but the snow was heading east.
“We’re just advising people that if you don’t have to work, stay home,” Springfield said.
Ice had coated roads and bridges in 36 of Mississippi’s 82 counties, mostly in the northern and central parts of the state, the Mississippi Department of Transported said in a statement Tuesday. Some of the heaviest snow in Mississippi was expected in the state’s Delta region, where up to eight centimetres was possible.
In Alabama, schools were closing or altering operating hours Tuesday as far south as south Alabama, and numerous businesses and government offices closed because of the threat. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey has declared a state of emergency.
Jim Wimberly was at work Tuesday morning managing a Dollar General story in Tuscumbia, in northwest Alabama, despite freezing precipitation on the ground and a forecast of more on the way. Shoppers had emptied the shelves of bread, but the milk case was still stocked because of a delivery on Monday.
“The roads are a little slick right now. It’s been sleeting for about the last hour or two hours,” said Wimberly. “Half of my parking lot is white and half of it is just regular asphalt.”
Alabama officials were trying to avoid a repeat of four years ago, when a winter storm blanketed central Alabama and left motorists stranded on roads in metro Birmingham for hours. Teachers and students camped out in schools.
Forecasters weren’t predicting a large amount of snow for Alabama — just five centimetres or less with more in spots.