NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A major winter storm that slammed Texas and blanketed the northern Gulf Coast with record-breaking snow moved east Wednesday, spreading heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain across parts of the Florida Panhandle, Georgia and eastern Carolinas.
The weather warning areas included big cities like Jacksonville, Florida, which expected to see snow, sleet and accumulating ice into Wednesday. The Jacksonville International Airport closed because of the weather Tuesday evening and said it planned to reopen at midday Wednesday. Schools canceled classes, and government offices were closed Wednesday.
Tallahassee woke to snow-dusted palms and icy streets Wednesday. Lina Rojas and her dachshund Petunia had never seen snow like this — far more than the dusting Florida's capital got in 2018.
“This is like … I don’t even know what to call it,” Rojas said of the snow. “You can see it!”
Dangerous below-freezing temperatures with even colder wind chills were expected to last over much of the week in the region. Authorities say three people have died in the cold weather. The heavy snow, sleet and freezing rain reached into the Deep South as a blast of Arctic air plunged much of the Midwest and the eastern U.S. into a deep freeze.
The snow and ice closed highways — including more than 100 miles (161 kilometers) of the nation's southernmost interstate, I-10, in Louisiana and Florida. Hundreds of flights were grounded at multiple airports. School was canceled or switched to remote learning for more than a million students who are more accustomed to hurricane dismissals than snow days.
Dawn found highways and surface roads across most of Georgia deserted, with traffic cameras showing street lights 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 storm dropped up to 5 inches (13 centimeters) of snow just inland and covered in white the sand from Hilton Head Island all the way up to the giant Ferris wheel in Myrtle Beach.
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.
Meanwhile, some people took advantage of the bridge's steep overpasses, turning them into impromptu sled runs.
The ferry system serving North Carolina's Outer Banks also suspended service, until Thursday. Snow accumulated to 5 inches (13 centimeters) or more in Morehead City early Wednesday.
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.”
Snow fell in Houston and prompted the first ever blizzard warnings for several coastal counties near the Texas-Louisiana border. Snow covered the white-sand beaches of normally sunny vacation spots, including Gulf Shores, Alabama, and Pensacola Beach, Florida.
“Believe it or not, in the state of Florida we’re mobilizing snowplows,” said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
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 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.
High school teacher David Delio and his two daughters glided down the levee on a yoga mat and a boogie board.
“This is a white-out 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.
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.
A state of emergency was also 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.
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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.
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