Wintry mess across the South

Residents contend with icy roads, power losses

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A massive storm brought snow, sleet, and freezing rain across a wide swath of the South on Sunday — causing dangerously icy roads, immobilizing snowfalls and power losses to hundreds of thousands of people.

Accidents on snow-covered interstates caused major delays, hundreds of flights were canceled and drivers in North Carolina and Virginia got stuck in snow or lost control on icy patches. Police in North Carolina and Virginia said they’d responded to hundreds of snow-related traffic accidents as of Sunday afternoon, as cars, trucks and tractor-trailers all struggled with the snow and ice.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper strongly urged residents to stay off the roads Sunday, asking drivers not to put lives of first responders needlessly at risk.

Five members of a dive team searched the Neuse River in Kinston, N.C., for a missing truck driver Sunday after a tractor-trailer ran off a road and into the river. Police just outside of Charlotte said a driver died when a tree fell on a moving vehicle.

Governors and local officials in several states declared emergencies ahead of the storm crossing several Southern states.

Virginia State Police said Interstate 81 in far southwest Virginia was particularly dangerous, with snow coming down faster Sunday afternoon than crews could clear it. Police said several tractor-trailers slid off the highway.

Officials warned residents to prepare emergency kits and stay off roads in impacted areas. Several schools districts in North Carolina and Virginia will be closed today.

The National Weather Service said a “prolonged period of snow” began late Saturday and lasting until today, with the heaviest snow expected in northwest North Carolina and southern Virginia. Some areas of North Carolina and Virginia saw more than a foot of snow by Sunday afternoon.

More than 300,000 power outages were reported across the region with the majority of those — about 240,000 — in North Carolina. Parts of Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia also saw outages.

At Charlotte Douglas International Airport, the sixth busiest airport in the country, American Airlines cancelled more than 1,000 flights Sunday. American Airlines also issued a travel alert for nine airports throughout the Carolinas, Tennessee, and Virginia. Cancellations were reported on flights from as far as the Midwest.