“Heavy snow“, “catastrophic ice accumulations” et “freezing temperatures“: American weather services warn Friday January 23 of the arrival of a “major winter storm“, which is expected to cause major disruptions to transportation and the electricity grid in much of the United States.
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| Passers-by brave the cold as they cross the Brooklyn Bridge in Manhattan, New York, on January 21. |
| Photo : AFP/VNA/CVN |
The storm, which is expected to sweep the central Great Plains from Friday evening, January 23, and move until Monday towards the metropolises of the East Coast, is expected to produce considerable amounts of snow, as well as sleet and freezing rain.
It risks causing “dangerous driving conditions, power outages, and tree damage“, predict the National Weather Services (NWS) in their latest bulletin, Friday at 2:37 p.m. (7:37 p.m. GMT).
For meteorologist Ryan Maue, “The next 10 days of winter will be the worst in 40 years across the United States“.
“Think about where you can go, what you can do, and who needs more help to survive the week ahead. This is not an exaggeration or a jokee”, launched the expert on X.
In Texas, many remember the winter storm of 2021, when a widespread outage on the southern state’s power grid left millions of homes without power and left more than 200 dead.
“This time I have a generator, and I’m ready“, declared to AFP Clinton Moore, met near Houston. “I don’t think it will be worse than five years ago. It can’t be“.
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| A passerby in the snow on a New York street on January 17. |
| Photo : AFP/VNA/CVN |
The local authorities wanted to be reassuring.
The state’s power gridhas never been more robust, never more prepared, and is completely capable of holding up in the face of this winter storm.”Governor Greg Abbott said Thursday, January 22, saying he did not expect “in no way” to power outages coming from the network itself.
However, conditions could be more dangerous in the northeastern United States, where “ice buildup is a big risk” for trees, whose branches can fall on power lines.
Nearly 2,400 flights scheduled for Saturday, January 24 have already been canceled across the country, including more than 1,300 with origin or destination in Dallas, Texas, according to the specialized site FlightAware.
Polar vortex
Across the country, local authorities encouraged residents to stockpile food and medicine and photos on social media showed empty supermarket shelves.
Police in Greensboro, North Carolina, advised people to be judicious about who to ride out the storm with.
“Remember, whoever you spend your Saturday with, you’ll be stuck with them at least until Tuesday, when the ice has melted“, she said on X.
AFP/VNA/CVN
