Nearly 12,000 flights were scrubbed as a severe storm system brought snow, ice, and dangerous cold from Texas to New England, leaving tens of thousands without power.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A powerful winter storm sweeping across the United States disrupted air travel and power systems over the weekend, prompting airlines to cancel nearly 12,000 flights and leaving tens of thousands of residents in the South without electricity as hazardous conditions intensified.
Air travel was severely affected on Jan. 24 as what forecasters described as a “catastrophic” weekend storm moved through the Southern Rocky Mountains and pushed eastward into New England. As of 2:30 p.m. ET, close to 12,000 flights scheduled for Saturday and Sunday had been canceled, according to flight tracker FlightAware.
More than 3,700 flights were canceled on Saturday alone, with the most heavily impacted airports including Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport, Nashville International Airport, Dallas Love Field Airport, Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, and Hartsfield–Jackson International Airport in Georgia. Cancellations continued into Sunday, with airlines scrapping more than 8,170 flights on Jan. 25. The most affected airports that day included New York’s LaGuardia Airport, Charlotte/Douglas International Airport, and Hartsfield–Jackson.
American Airlines, which operates its primary hub at Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport, recorded the highest number of canceled flights over the weekend, followed by Southwest Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Republic Airways, and United Airlines.
The storm also battered power grids across the South. Tens of thousands of Texans woke to widespread outages Saturday morning as freezing precipitation and plunging temperatures spread across the region. By midafternoon, more than 56,443 customers in Texas were without electricity.
Conditions were expected to deteriorate further. The National Weather Service reported that Dallas could experience “life-threatening cold” accompanied by a mix of freezing rain, heavy thundersleet, and snow through Sunday afternoon. Power disruptions began spreading beyond Texas, with counties in Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Arkansas also reporting outages by late morning.
By 2:30 p.m. ET, nearly 24,000 customers in Louisiana had lost power. Utility providers mobilized roughly 2,900 restoration workers in advance of the storm but warned that “restoration may take additional time due to hazardous weather conditions and increased system demand.”
States across the region activated emergency responses. Mississippi opened more than 40 warming shelters as temperatures plunged. In Tupelo, animal welfare groups scrambled ahead of the ice storm, with the nonprofit Paws of War rescuing roughly 200 dogs from a rural property. According to a Jan. 23 Facebook post, one of the rescued dogs gave birth to puppies shortly after being placed in a foster home.
“She is one of the dogs we removed from the property, just days away from delivering her puppies in brutal conditions,” the group wrote. “Without rescue, her babies would have been born into cold and danger.”
Road conditions also deteriorated rapidly. The Tennessee Department of Transportation responded to a surge of spinouts involving semi-trucks, vans, and passenger vehicles on highways and interstates in the Memphis area and urged motorists to stay off the roads.
States of emergency were declared in multiple states as the storm expanded, including Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, as officials warned that dangerous travel conditions, prolonged outages, and extreme cold could persist through the weekend.
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