Hundreds of motorists were stranded on Interstate 95 in Virginia on Tuesday, when a winter storm pounded the mid-Atlantic and dropped more than a foot of snow in certain regions.
The storm wreaked havoc on roadways, leaving more than 300,000 people in Virginia and Maryland without electricity and resulting in at least five fatalities in three states.
No casualties or damage were reported in the state as a result of the hurricane or traffic congestion, according to state authorities.
On I-95 near Fredericksburg, motorists were stranded in their vehicles overnight as an ice blanket covered the road. The Virginia Department of Transportation reported Tuesday that the portion of the motorway remained closed.
The Illinois Department of Transportation’s Marcie Parker said the department expected to clear I-80 by Tuesday night, leaving it accessible for the Wednesday morning rush hour.
On social media, people recounted their experiences sitting in traffic for hours without moving. On his journey to Washington, Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said he sat in traffic for 19 hours. Others reported that drivers got out of their cars and worried about food.
Many drivers switched off their engines to save fuel, according to a tweet from Josh Lederman of NBC News.
“People are taking exercise breaks outside their vehicles, walking their dogs on the interstate. I’ve been putting snow in his dish and letting it melt into water”, he wrote in a series of tweets.
On Monday evening, Meera and Raghavendra Rao were on the road home from seeing their daughter in North Carolina when they became stuck. They were 100 feet past an exit but couldn’t budge for 16 hours.
“Not one police (officer) came in the 16 hours we were stuck,” she recalled. “No one came. It was just unbelievable. In the most technologically advanced country on earth, no one knew how to clear a single lane so that we could all get out of there?”
Corinne Geller, a spokesperson for the state police, noted that fallen trees and black ice were still major problems for most of the state Tuesday morning.
“We understand that many travelers have been stranded on I-95 in our region for lengthy periods of time over the past 24 hours, with some cases beginning Monday morning. This is unprecedented, and we are continuing to steadily move stopped vehicles in order to make progress toward restoring lanes,” Parker said.
Virginia police responded to more than 1,000 traffic incidents According to Yarmosky, state authorities aided more than 1,000 drivers in dealing with the weather.
While sunlight is anticipated to aid VDOT in treating and clearing roads, all Virginians are advised to avoid the interstate and follow emergency workers’ instructions.
The blizzard blanketed parts of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Kentucky.
Schools across several states remained shut Tuesday, and as of 1 p.m., about 240,000 customers in Virginia and 25,000 in Maryland were without electricity, according to the online tracker Poweroutage.us.
According to the National Weather Service, snowfall amounts in the Washington region were a half foot to a foot.
The northbound and southbound portions of Interstate 95 in Virginia are closed on Jan. 3 due to snow and ice.
In Huntingtown, Maryland, more than 15 inches of snow fell, the greatest amount in the state, about 40 miles southeast of Washington. According to the Weather Service, Glendie north of Fredericksburg collected more than 14 inches of snow.
At least five fatalities were linked to the weather. A 7-year-old girl was crushed to death by a tree after heavy snow caused it to fall on a home in Townsend, Tennessee, approximately 30 miles southeast of Knoxville, WVLT said.
A second youngster, a 5-year-old boy in Georgia, was crushed to death when a tree came down on a home near Atlanta in DeKalb County, according to CBS 46.
Three more people died in a collision between an SUV and a snowplow near Gaithersburg, Maryland, according to NBC.
Monday’s storm was the first of three major winter storms expected to hit the region over the next week. The mayor of Washington, DC, announced a snow emergency and advised residents to stay inside. President Biden had his helicopter grounded by snow en route from Delaware to the White House and traveled by motorcade from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
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