Weather puts chill on U.S. flights

Adam Kerst of Hot Springs (from left) and Etzel Lopez and Rahk Lash of Russellville go online for refunds after their flights were canceled Friday at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field.
Adam Kerst of Hot Springs (from left) and Etzel Lopez and Rahk Lash of Russellville go online for refunds after their flights were canceled Friday at Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport/Adams Field.

A frigid winter storm iced power lines and runways across the South, grounding flights, knocking out electricity to thousands of customers and killing several people across the country.





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At least 2,824 flights across the U.S. were canceled Thursday and Friday, according to FlightAware, a Houston-based airline tracking company.Utilities were staging crews to work on anticipated power losses from Texas to Arkansas, some of which may last a week.

“What is impressive to me is how large an area of North America is getting the arctic chill right now,” said Jack Boston, a meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. in State College, Pa. “Places that get the power knocked out are in trouble unless they have a wood fireplace or stove.”

Winter storm warnings and advisories stretched to western Massachusetts from Texas’ border with Mexico, according to the weather service. The cold front roughly tracked that line, said Rob Carolan, owner of Hometown Forecast Services Inc. in Nashua, N.H. Temperatures were falling to the west, while it was relatively warm to the east.

American Airlines Inc. and its regional partner American Eagle grounded 900 flights Friday, more than one-third of the carrier’s daily total, because of the ice and sleet storm over North Texas.

“It is nasty,” said Andrea Huguely, an airline spokesman. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport is American’s largest hub.

The airline allowed passengers traveling through a number of cities in a region extending from Texas to Ohio to change tickets without being charged a fee.

American’s cancellations make up most of the 1,668 across the U.S. reported Friday by FlightAware. Freezing rain and sleet that began in the Dallas area late Thursday continued Friday, with temperatures forecast to remain below freezing through most of the weekend. Traffic was snarled, with portions of highways impassable, and area schools were closed.

Southwest Airlines canceled dozens of flights around the country, and the bad weather also contributed to delays at airports in Cincinnati; Newark, N.J.; and Philadelphia.

As much as an inch of ice was forecast to coat trees, power lines and roads from Texas to Tennessee, according to the National Weather Service.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry issued an emergency proclamation ahead of the storm.

Police in Arlington, about 20 miles west of Dallas, reported one driver was killed when his car slammed into a truck.

About 270,000 homes and businesses, including more than 210,000 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, were without power as of 12:30 p.m. CST on Friday, according to utility websites. Utilities also reported thousands of blacked-out customers in western Oklahoma and Arkansas as power failures spread into Tennessee.

The MetroPCS Dallas Marathon, scheduled for Sunday, was canceled, according to the marathon website.

In Dallas, the city suspended its light-rail service early Friday after switches began to freeze and trains began to stall because of icy overhead wires.

In North Texas, about a quarter of a million people were without power.

All power is expected to be restored in Dallas County, Texas, the hardest hit, by 3 p.m. Monday, Oncor Electric Delivery, owner of the area’s power lines, said on its website.

A dangerous mix of snow, ice and sleet hammered southern Missouri for a second-straight day Friday, causing numerous accidents, including a wreck that killed a small-town mayor.

There were reports of sleet a quarter-inch thick in the Cape Girardeau area, with snow on top of it. Some areas had up to 10 inches of snow on the ground by Friday morning, with more on the way. Making matters worse was the bitter cold, with wind chills dipping to near zero.

By late-morning Friday, Ameren Missouri, a utility company, reported nearly 3,200 power failures, mostly in the Bootheel region.

Thousands of homes and businesses in southeastern parts of Oklahoma were without electricity Friday as a winter storm began moving out of the state.

Roughly 9,000 power failures were reported, mainly in Choctaw and Pushmataha counties, as the storm that had dumped several inches of sleet, ice and snow on much of the state since Thursday began to diminish.

Emergency managers said the storm was responsible for the deaths of at least two people and for dozens of injuries and traffic accidents. Gov. Mary Fallin declared a state of emergency for all 77 counties Thursday.

The declaration allows state agencies to make emergency purchases related to disaster relief and preparedness. It’s also a first step toward seeking federal assistance should it be necessary.

A weather block forming over the Pacific Ocean funneled the cold air from Siberia and the North Pole into North America, Boston said, causing temperatures to fall to minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit to minus 20 across western Canada and remain below zero in Montana.

The cold reached into California’s Central Valley, where a hard-freeze warning has been in effect for most of this week. The warning means temperatures can get low enough to hurt livestock and damage crops.

Sacramento was expected to get some light snow Friday night for the first time since 2002, Boston said.

Los Angeles fell to 42 degrees Friday, and San Francisco was 39, Carolan said. Douglas, Ariz., on the Mexican border, was 29, he said.

Four people died of hypothermia in the San Francisco Bay Area, according to Rosie Dominguez, of the Santa Clara County coroner’s office.

Two people were killed on treacherous roads in Indiana where as much as 10 inches of snow fell.

Storms this week dumped 1 to 2 feet of snow in parts of Minnesota and Wisconsin and draped many communities in skin-stinging cold. The temperature in parts of North Dakota on Thursday was a few degrees below zero, but wind chill pushed it to nearly 40 below.

Information for this article was contributed by Brian K. Sullivan, Jim Polson, Dan Murtaugh, Rupert Rowling and Mary Schlangenstein of Bloomberg News; by Timothy Williams of The New York Times; by Molly Hennessy-Fiske of the Los Angeles Times; and by Jim Salter, Justin Juozapavicius, Diana Heidgerd,Terry Wallace, David Warren, Betsy Blaney, John L. Mone, Scott Mayerowitz, Michelle Rindels, Ramit Plushnick-Masti, Namaan Merchant and staff members of The Associated Press.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/07/2013

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