Historic winter storm cancels over 4,000 US flights, leaves more than 210,000 without power

US storm leaves 217,000 without power, forces thousands of flight cancellations

• Over 4,000 US flights canceled ahead of a major winter storm
• More than 210,000 lost power, mostly in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Tennessee
• Seventeen states and DC declared weather emergencies due to storm impacts

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More than 4,000 flights were canceled in the U.S. on Saturday ahead of a monster winter storm that has already cut power to more than 210,000 customers as far west as Texas and threatened to paralyze eastern states with heavy snowfall.

Forecasters said snow, sleet and freezing rain, accompanied by dangerously frigid temperatures, would sweep the eastern two-thirds of the nation on Sunday and into the week.

Calling the storms "historic," President Donald Trump on Saturday approved federal emergency disaster declarations in South Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, and West Virginia.

"We will continue to monitor, and stay in touch with all States in the path of this storm. Stay Safe, and Stay Warm," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.

'CRIPPLING TO LOCALLY CATASTROPHIC IMPACTS' FORECAST

Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have declared weather emergencies, the Department of Homeland Security said.

"We do have tens of thousands of people in affected states in the South that have lost power," DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said late on Saturday afternoon. "We have utility crews that are working to restore that as quick as possible."

The number of power outages continued to rise. As of 2 a.m. EST (0700 GMT) on Sunday, some 217,000 U.S. customers had no electricity, the bulk of them in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Tennessee, according to PowerOutage.com.

The Department of Energy on Saturday issued an emergency order authorizing the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to deploy backup generation resources at data centers and other major facilities, aiming to limit blackouts in the state.

The National Weather Service warned of an unusually expansive and long-duration winter storm that will bring widespread, heavy ice accumulation in the Southeast, where "crippling to locally catastrophic impacts" can be expected.

Weather service forecasters predicted record cold temperatures and dangerously cold wind chills descending further into the Great Plains region by Monday.