Kamal Ghorui
US President Donald Trump on Saturday said he had approved emergency declarations for 10 states hit by severe winter storms. He said that the federal government was working closely with FEMA, state governors and emergency management teams to ensure public safety as extreme cold and snow grip large parts of the country.“I have just approved Emergency Declarations for Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, and West Virginia. We are working closely with FEMA, Governors, and State Emergency Management teams to ensure the safety of everybody. Stay Safe, and Stay Warm!” Trump said through a post on Truth Social.Earlier on Saturday, the US president had approved emergency declarations for additional states in the storm’s path, including South Carolina and Virginia. Such declarations temporarily ease spending restrictions, enabling state governments to mobilise resources more quickly and seek federal assistance.At least 20 states have declared a state of emergency, among them Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia.In Louisiana, where freezing rain and icy conditions struck earlier in the day, about 50,000 customers were without power, according to outage tracker Poweroutage.us.Nearly 140 million people, accounting for more than 40 per cent of the US population, were under winter storm warnings from New Mexico to New England as a major system brought heavy snow and dangerous ice across large swathes of the country. The National Weather Service warned of widespread snowfall and potentially severe ice accumulations from east Texas to North Carolina.By midday Saturday, up to a quarter inch (0.6 cm) of ice had been recorded in parts of southeastern Oklahoma, eastern Texas and Louisiana. Governors in more than a dozen states declared emergencies or urged residents to remain indoors, while power crews in several southern states worked to restore outages and officials in parts of the east issued final weather alerts.“What really makes this storm unique is, just following this storm, it’s just going to get so cold,” Allison Santorelli, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, was quoted as saying by AP. “The snow and the ice will be very, very slow to melt and won’t be going away anytime soon, and that’s going to hinder any recovery efforts.”Meanwhile, more than 12,000 flights were cancelled across the United States over Saturday and Sunday, according to flight-tracking website FlightAware, as the winter storm disrupted air travel nationwide. Dallas–Fort Worth International Airport, one of the country’s busiest hubs, recorded over 700 cancelled departures on Saturday, with a similar number of arriving flights scrapped. Flight disruptions also mounted at major airports in Chicago, Atlanta, Nashville and Charlotte, North Carolina.After battering the southern states, the storm was forecast to push into the Northeast, with the National Weather Service predicting snowfall of about 1 to 2 feet (30 to 60 centimetres) from Washington through New York to Boston.
