SNOW, ICE BLASTS THROUGH SOUTH IN WINTER STORM
A dangerous winter storm combining high winds and ice swept through parts of the U.S. Southeast on Sunday, knocking out power, felling trees and fences and coating roads with a treacherous, frigid glaze.
Tens of thousands of customers were without power in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida. Highway patrols reported hundreds of vehicle accidents, and a tornado ripped through a trailer park in Florida. More than 1,200 Sunday flights at Charlotte Douglas International were canceled — more than 90 percent of the airport’s Sunroad day schedule, according to the flight tracking service flightaware.com.
Winter Storm Izzy dumped as much as 10 inches of snow in some areas of western North Carolina as the system moved across the southeastern U.S., said Brian Hurley, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Md.
First Sgt. Christopher Knox, a North Carolina Highway Patrol spokesperson, said that by midafternoon, the agency had responded to 300 car crashes and nearly 800 calls for service. Two people died Sunday when their car drove off the and into trees in a median east of Raleigh. The driver and passenger, both 41-year-old South Carolina residents, were pronounced dead at the scene of the single-vehicle crash. Knox said investigators believe the car was driving too fast for the conditions, described as mixed winter precipitation.
Durham police tweeted a photo of a tractor-trailer that slid off the N.C. Highway 147 overpass in Durham. A police spokesperson said the driver did not appear to have lifethreatening injuries.
Outages, which had ballooned to a quarter-million customers earlier in the day, stood at around 130,000 customers by late Sunday, according to poweroutage.us. North Carolina was hardest hit, peaking at some 90,000 outages. Parts of Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Virginia and Kentucky also lost power.
The National Weather Service confirmed a tornado with 118 mph winds struck southwest Florida. The weather service said the tornado was on the ground for almost two miles with a maximum path width of 125 yards. Thirty mobile homes were destroyed and 51 had major damage. Three minor injuries were reported.