Austin, Texas –
Winter weather brought ice to large swaths of the U.S. on Tuesday, canceling more than 1,700 flights nationwide, halting traffic on an interstate highway through Arkansas, and seriously injuring two Texas attorneys. An accident has occurred.
As the ice storm moved east on Tuesday, monitoring and warnings extended from the western heel of Texas to West Virginia. The Federal Weather Prediction Center warned many areas were expected to experience several mixed precipitation events, including freezing rain and sleet, by Wednesday, with some areas likely to experience multiple hits. I’m here.
At least one person was killed in Austin, Texas, after numerous car crashes were reported, according to the Austin Fire Department. According to the Austin-Travis County Traffic Report Page, in Travis County, Texas, which includes Austin, police and sheriff’s deputies respond to a new clash approximately every three minutes starting at 8 a.m.
More than 900 flights to and from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, a major U.S. airport hub, and more than 250 flights to and from Dallas Love Field were canceled or delayed on Tuesday, according to tracking service FlightAware. More than 50% of flights scheduled for Tuesday have been canceled by Tuesday afternoon.
Dallas-based Southwest Airlines canceled more than 560 flights on Tuesday and delayed more than 350 flights, FlightAware reported.
Republican Gov. Greg Abbott said about 7,000 power outages were reported in Texas as of late Tuesday morning after a briefing in Austin on the deteriorating situation. He stressed that the blackouts were due to factors such as icing and fallen trees on power lines, not the performance of the Texas power grid, which collapsed for days during the deadly winter storms of 2021. bottom.
Emergency vehicles were fanned out on 1,600 roads affected by the ice.
In Texas, a sheriff’s deputy pulled over to help the driver of an 18-wheeler that veered off an icy highway on Tuesday, according to the Travis County Sheriff’s Office. He was knocked over and impaled under one of the tires. About 45 minutes after the crash on Highway 130, the deputy was freed from wreckage and taken to a hospital where he underwent surgery on Tuesday afternoon, officials said. The deputy is expected to survive, officials said.
In another shipwreck, a Texas state police officer was hospitalized with serious injuries after being hit by a driver who lost control of his vehicle, said Texas Department of Public Safety Director Steve McLaw.
“The roads are very dangerous right now. You can’t overemphasize that,” Abbott said.
In Arkansas, Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared a state of emergency on Tuesday due to an ice storm. “Many power lines could be cut,” Sanders said in a statement, adding that road conditions had created a backlog of deliveries by commercial drivers.
Interstate 40, one of the main roads through Arkansas, was covered in ice in the Forest City area on Tuesday and was “extremely dangerous,” according to the city’s fire department. Photos posted on social media showed the semi-trailer’s crumpled cab.
The department responded to two terrible shipwrecks and about 15 other crashes on Tuesday morning, section chief Jeremy Sharp said by phone. In many accidents, drivers speed up on the highway but run into trouble when they reach a bridge.
“They hit the ice and start breaking,” he said.
“When Interstate 40 is shut down like this, it’s hours of waiting,” said John Gadbury, who lives in Colt, Arkansas, not far from the highway. “I-40 is usually slightly higher, so he’s one of the first to freeze.”
The Arkansas Department of Transportation announced that by late Tuesday morning, Interstate 40 had cleared and traffic had resumed. An interstate highway connects Little Rock, Arkansas to Memphis, Tennessee.
The storms will begin Monday through Wednesday as part of “several times” of expected winter rainfall in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Mark Chennard. rice field.
“Typically, a significant amount of ice will result in light to moderate freezing rain,” Chenard said.
“We anticipate 1/4-inch or more of ice build-up from Austin, Texas, as far south as Dallas to Little Rock, Arkansas, Memphis, Tennessee, and even closer to Nashville, Tennessee,” Chenard said. says Mr.
The flight disruption follows a Southwest Airlines meltdown in December that began with winter storms and continued even after most other airlines recovered. Southwest Airlines has canceled about 16,700 flights in his last 10 days of the year, pending an investigation by the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The Bureau of Meteorology issued a winter storm warning for large parts of Texas and parts of southeastern Oklahoma, and an ice storm warning across central Arkansas for western Tennessee.
Winter weather advisories are in place for much of the rest of Arkansas and Tennessee, and much of southern Kentucky, West Virginia, Indiana, and Ohio.
Schools and colleges in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas will either close or move to virtual learning on Tuesday.
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Martin reported from Woodstock, Georgia. Associated Press writer Sarah Brumfield is in Silver Spring, Maryland. Andrew DeMiro of Little Rock, Arkansas. Ken Miller of Oklahoma City. Contributed by David Koenig of Dallas.
