I hope all of our members who live in the affected areas are keeping warm and safe in this terrible storm. More here.
GREENSBORO, N.C. — Almost two thousand departing flights were canceled and hundreds of thousands of households and businesses lost power as a winter storm brought freezing rain and up to about 18 inches of snow to parts of the Southeast.
The wintry blast had covered the North Carolina cities of Saluda, in Polk and Henderson counties, and Sparta, in Alleghany County, in more than 18½ inches by late Sunday afternoon, the National Weather Service said.
Snowfall reached 18 inches in Fries, Virginia; 13 inches in Lawn, West Virginia; 12 inches in Kingsport, Tennessee; and 11.9 inches in Inman, South Carolina, the weather service said.
Ten minutes south of downtown Greensboro, Robert Leach's Ford F-150 hadn't been able to move more than a block in the previous hour.
"We never get snow like this," Leach said, "or else I would have bought the four-wheel-drive truck."
Emergency services in the city had a record 250 calls from stranded drivers from overnight into Sunday morning, city officials said.
About 1,930 departures had been canceled at airports in the region by early Sunday evening, according to the flight-tracking service FlightAware. Most were in the Carolinas and Virginia.
Almost 380,000 customers remained without power early Sunday evening, utilities in the region reported. More than half were in the Carolinas.
