Closer to home
* Tennessee declares state of emergency ahead of ‘blizzard-like conditions’* Approaching winter storm triggers warnings, watches for region* All Friday athletic events in Hamilton County have been postponed* Storm could bring freezing rain, high winds to north Georgia
WASHINGTON – American Airlines is canceling the bulk of its flights in the Northeast ahead of the storm. Snow, ice and strong winds will all cause problems for fliers.
At its Charlotte hub, all 654 American flights are canceled for Friday. The airline will not keep any jets there overnight, with plans to resume flights to Charlotte on Saturday morning.
The three Washington and Baltimore area airports will see flight cancelations starting Friday afternoon with all flights canceled there Saturday.
New York’s three airports will see all Saturday afternoon American flights canceled with flights resuming on Sunday.
The only good news for fliers: Saturday is the slowest travel day of the week. There are a little more than 22,000 flights scheduled to, from or within the U.S., according to flight tracking service FlightAware. That’s about 5,000 fewer flights – and 400,000 fewer passengers – than on Thursday or Friday.
All major airlines have issued waivers for travel over the weekend, allowing passengers to rebook onto earlier or later flights to avoid the storms.
Presidential motorcade gets stalled by 1 inch of snow
Even President Barack Obama couldn’t escape the rough commute that greeted Washington commuters Wednesday evening when snowy conditions prevented him from returning to the White House via helicopter.
It took the presidential motorcade about an hour and 14 minutes to travel between Andrews Air Force Base and the White House. The distance: roughly 15 miles. Along the way, the motorcade passed four accidents, all appearing to be fender benders with no injuries. When the motorcade was forced to stop, some of the SUVs skidded sideways until a curb kept them from sliding off the road.
The problem occurred as the result of about 1 inch of snow, a potentially bad omen with a much more powerful snowstorm bearing down on the city this weekend.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest said local officials were caught off guard by the storm. In all fairness, the White House was too, considering it didn’t make the call to void the helicopter until the president was on Air Force One coming home from Detroit.