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tv   The Situation Room  CNN  February 12, 2014 2:00pm-3:29pm PST

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i want to stay on the phones because we had the mayor from north carolina on the line with us, mayor nat robertson. mayor, what did you do to prepare your city for this? >> hey, jake. good afternoon. yesterday at 3:00 we declared a state of emergency which basically opens us up for any type of state or federal aid in case things really get bad. we put a fair amount of ice and brine on the road, so when the ice and sleet and the nasty stuff does fall it will hopefully melt much faster. >> mayor nat robertson, thank you so much. i have to go right now in light of our breaking news coverage on the winter storm crippling the south, we will regrettably not have time to share our interview with bill maher. i turn you over to wolf blitzer in "the situation room." >> jake, thanks very much.
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we're continuing to follow the breaking news. a deadly weather emergency, much of the southeast frozen shut, hundreds of thousands of people have no power. they are in the cold, getting ready for the dark. militaries more are about to get hammered farther north. and a new snow gem is unfolding with cars stopped and abandoned. stand by for firsthand accounts of people stuck desperate to get home, including a pregnant woman in her car with a small child. is north carolina making the same mistakes as georgia did just a couple weeks snag tough questions for the state's governor meeps standing by to join us live. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." we're watching the deadly bombardment of ice and snow that's overwhelming the southern half of the country right now and heading toward the northeast as well. in the bull's-eye this hour in north carolina. heavy snow blanketing palm trees, more than a foot may fall, traffic screeching to a
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haul on some major highways. road to raleigh area especially are very, very difficult. people are simply abandoning their cars and they're walking. also getting hit hard right now central georgia, where a glaze of ice up to one inch thick is bringing down trees and power lines. at least five deaths across the region already are being blamed on the weather. and nearly half a million customers have already lost electricity. more than 80 million people across the southeast are in the grip of this storm. millions more farther north. they are now threatened. our correspondents are in a position to bring you up-to-the-minute coverage of this potentially catastrophic weather situation. let's bethis hour with our severe weather expert, chad myers. tell us what we know right now. >> what we know about raleigh is the snow started at the exact wrong time, the same time it started in atlanta a couple weeks ago. everybody was out. they thought they could get a couple more things done. it snowed and the roads stopped
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nap's what's going on in raleigh. i'll show you the traffic in just a second. it is now snowing in richmond and it will soon be snowing in d.c. it is ice across the carolinas, icing in atlanta. at least an inch of glaze, of sleet piling up in atlanta, trees coming down. far while we were pushing a half million people without power across the area here. this is what the raleigh-durham area looks like. i will show you this. significa sigalert.com, this is raleigh, all the roads are red, less than 10 miles per hour. back up toward durham, red. i-85 out of durham, red, less than 5 miles per hour. and that road is i-95, and that's red in both directions to the east there of raleigh. this is going to be a night a lot like the people had in atlanta because now they're stuck. it's getting cold. cars aren't going to move. you get one fender bender in front of you, and that stops everything for hours. the same type of thing happened
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here. people slept in home depots and waffle houses and anywhere they could find shelter. that's going to happen tonight in raleigh-durham, north carolina. >> then it's moving towards the northeast and there's potentially huge problems here in washington, philadelphia, new york city. >> that's absolutely correct. the snow is on its way. i do believe it's going to be a tricky forecast and you veal to watch your local yair ya to figure out where you live. i-95 is going to be the cutoff. if you're 100 miles east of there, it's going to be two inches of snow. 50 miles, 4 to 6 right along 8, to the west 12. it's because there will be rain and sleet that mixes in. lit pack down your snow the closer you are to the coast, you'll only get snow the farther away you are from the coast. that's why it will be so much deeper in reston, virginia, than it will be in green belt or into b bowie and deeper into new
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jersey. it is a local forecast right along that i-95 and it's coming tonight. >> a very serious situation. all right. don't go too far away. joining us on the phone is gabrielle heart in raleigh, north carolina. you had a pretty dramatic, fearful experience, gabrielle. tell our viewers what you went through. >> well, i left work pretty soon after it started snowing around 12:30, and it took me act an hour to make it a mile. so two hours later, still hadn't moved and i decided to go ahead and walk because it's only another four miles left. and once i made it to a hotel, i decided to walk inside, get warm, kind of call my family, let them know it's all right and found ut i had frostbite on my ankles. and kind of stranded now, nicer people in the lobby. >> how are you getting treated that frostbite?
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>> lucky for me a team of nurses were also stranded, and so they were happy to help out. people at the hotel were generous. they put out the breakfast food for everyone to eat. and they wrapped my ankles and kept them elevated. >> when you got up this morning, gabrielle, you went to work, didn't folks tell you this is going to be a terrible day, maybe just stay home, don't go to work, don't be on the roads? >> yes. and i'm actually a student at n.c. state university, and they had off today starting at noon. and i was kind of hesitant to go, but figured i would leave as soon as it started and make it back in time. but once the snow came in 45 minutes everything was covered, traffic was bumper to bumper, no one was moving. >> people obviously they went to work this morning and they didn't realize how bad it was going to be. they thought it was not necessarily going to be that bad, north carolina clearly not necessarily as ready as some northern states for this kind of weather. all right. stand by. we're going to continue this
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conversation. gabrielle heart, good luck to you and good luck to everybody in north carolina. we're joined by another north carolina woman right now forced also to abandon her car on a snowy highway. natalie is joining us via skype via raleigh. what happened to you, that the lee? >> well, i left work at about 1:00, probably only ten minutes after it had started snowing and i thought i would be good to go. my commute is only about 2.3 miles so i thought i had a little more time to get home than i did. i probably made it about a half-mile, not even, and decided to just abandon my car and walk two miles home. >> how was that walk? what was going on? >> well, there were cars all over the sides of the road. they were in the medians. a lot of people had abonn donned their cars. i probably passed about 20 of them. people were sliding all over the place. and i just don't think we were quite as prepared as we should have been. >> that must have been a difficult decision to leave the
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relative warmth of your car and start walking and just leave the car on the highway. right? >> right. i had debated it quite a while and called some friend to see what they thought i should do, and some friend had abandoned their cars as well. hopefully they're in one piece when we get back. >> let's hope so. this is video you shot with your smartphone showing a lot of abandoned cars. i hope you had boots on walking through that snow. right? >> i did. thankfully i still had boots in my car from my trip to pennsylvania over christmas so i didn't have to walk in my stilettos home. >> you grew up in western pennsylvania, so you're used to snow. were you surprised at what was going on in north carolina today? you've been there for a while. how unique was this, shall we say? >> north carolina snow is very different than western
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pennsylvania snow. we're not as e equipped for it. they had primed the roads a couple days ago but it rained and washed a lot of it away. typically in pennsylvania they salt the roads well prior. the problem in raleigh is the snow melts so quickly and refreezes so quickly that instead of just snow it's ice and people can't move the that. >> were you told this morning don't go to work, stay homewy bilow e cal authorities on the radio or television? >> i hadn't seen it. i had watched the news before i left to see what the roads would be like, and they told us the snow would probably hit between 12:00 and 2:00. so i figured i only live, you know, two miles away from where i work so once it starts i'll go ahead and leave. but in that ten-minute time span i ended up getting stuck. >> are you okay right now, natalie? how you doing? >> great. we're warm, nice and toasty warm. i'm glad to be home and safe. >> we're glad you're home and safe as well, natalie. thanks very much. coming up, i'll ask north
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carolina's governor about the gridlock on the roads right now. should the state have been more prepared for the situation in north carolina given the recent traffic nightmare in georgia? and she's late in pregnancy, been stuck in her car for hours. she'll share her story with us when we e come back. [announcer] if your dog can dream it, purina pro plan can help him achieve it. ♪epic classical music stops ♪music resumes purina pro plan's bioavailable formulas
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we're continuing to follow the breaking news, a new traffic nightmare ungolding as that deadly winter snow and ice storm moves east. hundreds of cars have been stuck or abandoned on major highways and roads in north carolina. the state governor is joining us on the phone. i know off lot going on. we spoke to two young women who had to abandon their cars. they went to work this morning. all of a sudden it started to snow and they were potentially in very bad shape. were folks not warned this morning maybe stay home today, don't go to work? >> we had a lot of warnings all day yesterday and even this morning. this is a 2,000-mile storm from nags head to asheville, north carolina, going through three or four major metropolitan iryas, raleigh-durham, winston-salem, charlotte, asheville. and each part of the state is having unique issues. some are more ice, some are more snow, and we did a good job with
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the roads and putting materials on the roads. but it only takes one or two accidents in metropolitan areas to block a major highway like i-40 or i 77, which intersect in our state. so we are dealing with abandoned cars in certain areas, namely the raleigh-durham, greensboro, and charlotte arias, and we have a plan to not only clear the abandoned cars for tonight but also help people get out of them and deal with it. people not even going to the duke/carolina game tonight. i encourage others not to go. watch it on tv. our major concern is public safety and the health and safety. we've had two fatalities in the last 24 hours. this actually started 16 hours ago in the fayetteville area in the mountains area and continues to spread. we are amongst three different weather patterns in our state we're dealing with. >> i know it's a big basketball game tonight, duke and north carolina. if it's dangerous for folks to leave their homes and drive or
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go to watch the game, why don't they just postpone it, do it another night? >> i'm encouraging no one go to the game. i don't make the call to postpone the ball game, but if it's just the players and the referees there, that's fine with me. but i'm encouraging people not to go to the game unless they're right next door to the dean smith center at the campus, where student can walk to the game. >> who makes that decision? >> i think the athletic director makes that decision. you know, duke and carolina are right next door to each other so the players are already at the event this morning. but, you know, that's the lowest of my priority right now is an athletic event. my priority is to keep people safe and our major concern tonight is power outages because of the ice and electric wires and trees. so we're dealing with road issues and electric power issues tonight and we're expecting another storm, a continuation storm especially in the greensboro, winston-salem area tomorrow. and we'll have tough road
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conditions. but once we get through this initial shower of some people who did wait too long to get home, once we get that cleared, hopefully in the next several hours, things will calm down and people will just stay at home, be safe, and take care of each other. i think you're right about the power outages. what really worries me, governor, and i'm sure it does you as well as elderly folks stuck, about to get dark in north carolina, they lose electricity, they lose their power and they're home alone, that can be terrifying, it can be very dangerous. here's the question -- is the national guard, have you mobilized the national guard to start rescuing people, fema, the federal authorities? are they being brought in? >> i'm with the state guard as we speak right now. so we're on call to make any means necessary. the dilemma in any natural emergency is communications and access, and that's the dilemma with power going out and people not knowing what's going on.
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as i've learned during my 14 years as mayor of charlotte, the biggest problem is communications if the power goes out and people not knowing what's going on and how we reach the consumer and our citizens. right now we've got people traveling, and down the highways in special four-wheel vehicles to make any rescues that we need to make and more than anything else we're just encouraging people to be smart and don't put their stupid hat on during the next 48 hours. >> how many people are without power right now? >> actually, the power sources are quite limited at this point in time. it's literally just in the several thousand. but we anticipate power outages as the night proceeds and limbs -- because we're expecting more icing over the night. this is a very unique storm for north carolina. it's the second one in two weeks. we have not had this type of storm covering such a large area of our state in decades. so it's a strain on supplies and
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we're even guessing on logistics, moving equipment from the east to the west, back to the east, to the pead responsibility areas of the state. so our highway patrol, our emergency personnel, our guard are all working extremely well together. we're on phone calls about every 45 minutes to an hour right now getting updates and we're moving supplies literally by the hour to where the areas get hit the most. and this weather forecast is very hard to predict because of where the line is between freezing rain and snow. actually it's freezing rain that causes us the most concern. >> a couple weeks ago i spoke with your colleague, nathan deal, the governor of georgia. he was severely criticized because people were stuck in their cars for hours and hours in the atlanta area as you remember. i spoke with him earlier today. he said he thinks they did learn the lessons of what happened in georgia a couple weeks ago. here's the question for you, governor. have you learned those lessons from what happened in georgia and they could apply to north
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carolina? because frankly it looks like some of these pictures that we're seeing now, these live pictures. we saw the same pictures of georgia a couple weeks ago. >> we have the same storm that georgia had. so we were very pleased that we did right on declaring emergency declaration far in advance two weeks ago and did it again very early this year -- i mean this storm. and the difference is probably in this storm it's hitting a wider spectrum of three or four different metropolitan areas, not just one metropolitan area, as in atlanta, but we literally have charlotte, greensboro, the durham triangle area in ashevil asheville. we're talking four different major problem areas. most people don't realize north carolina is the tenth largest populous state many the nation and this is over a 2,430 mile area. we have quite a bit of challenges but my emergency personnel are doing a very good job but right now a few people
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did not follow our instructions and it only takes one or two cars to block a major interstate like 85 or 40 or 77 and we're dealing with it as we speak, wolf. so we just ask people to be safe and take care of their neighbor. >> let me ask you about this statement that was just put out by the north carolina department of transportation, the communications supervisor, a guy named steve abbott. he's saying this. i'll read it to our viewers. i just got the statement. anxious to get your reaction, governor. "there are some people abandoning their cars. we are urging them not to. it is very dangerous for them to be on foot with cars sliding near them and it blocks access for our sand trucks and plows and causes gridlock." he goes on to say, "if you abandon your car and they don't want you to, your car will be instantly towed and the car's owner will be left to track down the car and pay for the towin t" is that okay for you? >> we want people to stay in
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their car s and we come help them. we prefer to have them stay in their car unless they're in immediate danger. we want them to stay in their car, don't abandon their car, unless certain elements require them to get out in very cold weather. we have a system set up where we can rescue those individuals in their cars and that's our incentive at this point in time is to help the people get out of their car and unblock the traffic. the dilemma is once they abandon their car, they block automatic the traffic, including emergency operation vehicles, and they're putting other people at risk on these major highways and thoroughfares. these are i 95. these are the major thoroughfares across the whole eastern coast and east to west. so this is traffic going -- other types of traffic coming all the way up the coast. >> i want to clarify this one sensitive point because i spoke to two young women who did abandon their cars on these
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highways in north carolina and walked, one to a hotel not that far away but she did get frostbite. fortunately, there were some nurse there to take care of her. another managed to get home. it says here these people, if their cars are towed, they will have to pay for the towing. will these two young women have to pay for their cars being towed? >> well, most likely, if they don't pay it, someone else has to pay for it. we care for these two women and would have preferred they stay in their cars so we could help them not get frostbites because the outside elements are so bad. we actually have people that will come pick people up at this point in time. we're also working with hospitals because we need public safety personnel to get to the hospitals and other things, you know, emergency workers who are helping people in our hospitals too. and we've got a system set up in 100 counties for workers to get to the hospitals also. >> do you have any idea how much it will cost these young women and others who have abandoned their cars? >> i don't know. the state has spent probably over $30 million during the last
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two weeks on clearing and helping on the sideways. right now money is not a cause for me e. major issue is saving lives, not dealing with towing costs. we're trying to save lives right now, wolf. >> what if people run out of gas and engines stop running. should they still stay in their cars or try and get away? >> in moe cases, use common sense. if it's dangerous to walk, we don't want them to get in their car, sfoishl they don't fill up their tank. you know, these are the kind of thing wes try to warn people yesterday regarding not getting in their cars and if they do make sure they have all the safety procedures intact including enough fuel in their car. but we're here to help people and save their lives and we're trying to encourage other people to be smart. right now the smartest thing to do is don't get on the highway. we're here to help you. we've already had two fatalities and we e don't want to see
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anymore. >> the smartest thing is if you're home, don't go outside. not a time to be on roads. >> even at work. if you're in a safe, warm place, stay there at this point in time. your quality of life might be a little different, you won't be able to get to other quality of life issues. our main issue is protecting the life and safety of our citizens. the next 48 hours, that's our major goal at this point in time, not have any more loss of life. we had several people lose their lives two weeks ago during the last storm due to accidents. what's ironic is during the accidents it's usually the passenger that is killed and often we also have people not wearing their seat belts. but right now we -- my other concern is our emergency officials. if people stay home and stay off the roads, i don't want to put my emergency officials in jeopardy either. we have a highway patrol officer get hit by -- their car got hit by another car while helping
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another car last night and he's still in the hospital tonight. so my prayers are with one of my highway patrol officers at this point in time, just trying to rescue people as we speak. >> governor, good luck to you and to everyone in north carolina right now. good luck to everyone in the south. this weather situation is pretty awful. >> yes. it's quite a unique storm for the southeast. our big dlem dilemma is when we e get a storm like this the temperatures is right there at freezing which causes us all great straps. but north carolina and south carolina, virginia, and georgia. >> heading towards washington, philadelphia, and new york city even as we speak. >> i wish those governors the best. >> wish all the folks the best as well. thanks very much. good luck. >> thanks, wolf. take care. >> coming up, much more on the breaking news coverage. we'll hear from a pregnant woman. she's been stuck in her car. she's got a young child with that massive traffic gridlock in north carolina. stand by. we'll also check in on the road
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continuing to follow the breaking news out of the south. a huge ice storm moving from the south towards the northeast right now and in the atlanta, georgia, area, it's moving through north carolina. there are some pretty disastrous stories we've been hearing throughout the south right now. but here in the mid-atlantic states, washington, d.c., up in the northeast, get ready as it's heading your way. on the phone right now is a woman who's stuck in north carolina traffic. deana hunt is joining us on the phone. are you still in your car right now? >> i am, wolf. i'm sitting in my car on a road called fayetteville street. and i'm probably, without traffic, without snow, about three minutes from my house. i've been sitting on this road for about 45 minute, left the crabtree valley area.
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and what normally takes me about 22 minutes to get home, i's now four hours. so it has been quite an adventure. >> you're staying put. you have enough gasoline in your car right now? >> fortunately, i filled up today. it was such a crazy day. at 11:00 the governor came on, told everyone to batten down the hatches, and i filled up my gas going to an parm at noon, thought i would be back in plenty of time, came out of my appointment at 1:20 and it was snowing with a vengeance. it was coming so fast. and i think that's what really blind-sided everyone is that it's just so fast. you know, that's the thing. it just came down so fast and so furious. >> we're showing our viewers a picture you sent us of the traffic where you're stuck right now. you're so close yet so far away from your destination. the governor says stay in your car, don't abandon your vehicle. if you do, it's going to be towed and you'll have to pay for that towing. so you're staying put inside your car. >> i am.
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yeah. i have seen several cars abandoned, and quite frankly i think a lot of it are people that just completely spun out sideways and, you know, either that or ran out of gas. so the great thing is i'm seeing a lot of people trying to help out, whether they have four wheelers or whether they're pushing cars. you know, that's that southern hospitality. people are really trying to help out. but i know there's a danger in that. so i wish i could say i was home in front of the fireplace with my dogs but i probably am looking at, based on how fast i'm moving, which right now sst gridlock, probably another few hours. >> deana, didn't the authorities tell you this morning, don't leave your house, stay put, it's going to be dangerous later? didn't they all tell you that on the radio or television on all these news alerts? >> i saw the governor come on this morning around 10:30, and, you know, my impression was that i could get to where i was going
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and get back like a lot of other people. and the fact that it came so fast, that's the thing. it's amazing how quickly you can get stuck. all it takes is one accident and then it just starts backing up and it's the trickle-down effect. so i was aware -- i was really under the impression it would be closer toward the evening, but obviously right on the nose it started coming down at 1:00 and now it's sleeting. so that's the dangerous part. you know, the one thing he said this morning was you remember the 2002 ice storm, well, be prepared for that. and i was here for that ice storm. so i was fully ware but started polling my friends that recently moved here and told them to prepare, go get water, go get battery, all of the necessary items. and here i am ironically stuck in it. so the good news is fayetteville street is now moving. i'm no longer sitting in gridlock. i'm hoping to be home in an
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hour. you know, it's one of those things that it's snow chaos. someone just sent me #snowchaos and that's really the best way to describe it. a very unusual storm. >> but you were told even yesterday the forecasters were saying get ready for a major snowstorm, right? >> yeah. i didn't watch the news yesterday. i watched it this morning. and so i didn't -- obviously we knew there was a huge front coming through. but you just never anticipate it coming as fast as it does. and it came in the middle of the day at lunchtime. one of those freak thing where is unfortunately a lot of us are stuck. the d.o.t. is trying to clear people out. it's side roads that are the challenge where people are abandoning their cars. that's where the gridlock is happening. >> are you seeing emergency vehicles on the road, trucks
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sanding or trying to clean up the side roads, anything along those lines? >> yeah. actually, a couple miles back there was fire hydrants for some reason that were busted and they were bubbling out water. it was on the median. i don't know how they were able to get through. they were coming down the middle of the median to fix those, the pipes that are busting. so i was impressed with that. otherwise there's a lot of yellow flashing lights ahead of me. i don't know specifically if there are -- to me i would imagine the fact that i lived in north carolina 14 years, those are probably for the power lines that are getting ready to come down. the ice that's setting in, it's starting to get dark here, it's 5:40 in the evening on the east coast. we will probably wake up to a winter wonderland of ice, and those trees when they get really heavy they bend and snap and fall on the power lines. that is usually where most of the injuries come into play.
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people start trying to take it upon themselves to remove trees and limbs off of downed power lines and that's obviously very dangerous. >> do you have a plan in case you get home, it gets dark, you lose your power? and you could lose power for the next few days. >> oh that's a huge reality. we have a backup plan. we know that we can go out to our cars and charge our phones and lots of batteries. we have a gas stove so we can cook. we'll be making some nice dinners, having some wine. but we do have backup houses. and using that coconut water system we'll crash each other houses and have snowed-in parties with my network of friends. hopefully we won't all be out of power. >> you have a good attitude. good luck to you. >> thanks, wolf. >> thanks for sharing your story with our viewers. we'll continue to follow the breaking news out of the south. we're going live next to a student at the side of the road where cars have been abandoned,
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these are live pictures coming to us from raleigh, north carolina. a few cars out there but it's very treacherous. this snow and ice storm heading towards the northeast -- washington, new york city, about to get hit with major, major snow and ice.
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chad myers is at the cnn severe weather center. walk us through the progress of the storm. >> that street you just just showed is probably the best one i've seen in raleigh all day. it is snowing in richmond. this going on an overnight event for you. d.c. you probably don't run into the same type of event that raleigh did. you had what atlanta did. it snowed overnight here. it'sed overnight here. people looked out and said i'm not going out. our streets are barren. there's nobody out there at all, the good news, whereas raleigh thought they had a chance, a window to do some thing, and clearly that didn't happen. here you go, right up i-95, almost to d.c., the suburbs, la plata, right there. here's raleigh, just about ready to switch over the ice on top of the snow that you already have. and then atlanta still icing here, although it is switching over to some snow right now and that snow will pile up on top of that. that's what you see here.
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here's raleigh. this is our top story. this is that band of heavy snow that all of the people have been talking about that they got caught off guard. it came from fayetteville. it came right up here, really almost up by 40, right into raleigh, and when this band right there was just over raleigh, it was about 2 inches of snow per hour. couldn't keep up it with, couldn't get out of the way. that's how people got stuck in that area. now for you and the rest of the northeast, how this shapes up, as the storm continues to move to the northeast, it will be warm right along the coast. so there may be a little bit of ice but there certainly won't be snow buildup for atlantic city, for salisbury, maryland, for the delmarva, all the way into hampton roads, no snow for you. you may see it in the sky but it won't stick. the farther you get toward i-95 or west of i-95 the deeper that snow gets. and yes, that is purple. i go down here, that's a foot of snow or more, that's west of i-95, but not that far west of
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reston, almost to hanover county. all the way down here this would be greensboro and back down to charlotte, which is right there. you'll miss it. asheville, greenville. going to see some very heavy snowfall on the backside of this developing storm. >> i know there's been all sorts of travel problems as a result of this storm, flights canceled, delayed, certainly we've got pictures of traffic cameras all over the place showing really disastrous situations unfolding. take a look at this picture showing our viewers right now from raleigh e, north carolina. this is charlotte, north carolina. these are live pictures coming in from traffic cameras. fortunately not a whole lot of people on the street there. but other part -- there are plenty of abandoned cars. looks like some of the folks in north carolina are going through today, chad, what you guys in atlanta went through two weeks ago. >> absolutely p same scenario.
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even though in the raleigh-durham area, schools were closed today, people still thought they could do things in the early part of the day and this is what sigalert, traffic.com, you can go to google, all these red roads around raleigh, here's durham, chapel hill. this red road is i-95 and this is 40ishgs trying to come up from the shore. this is truly a mess. this is 540. there's a crash on the north side of 540. i'm looking at these traffic cameras. you can do the same thing at home. there are cars going left, right, sideways, cars are all over. it is that slippery right now. >> air travel is becoming a real problem as well. more on that part of the story coming up. chad, don't go too far away. much more of the breaking news. this snow and ice storm moving from the south towards the northeast. [ female announcer ] you get sick, you can't breathe through your nose...
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the university of north carolina just announced it's capsling tonight's big game between duke and north carolina. supposed to take place in chapel hill. you heard the governor of north carolina tell us just a little while ago he hoped no one would go, he was hoping they would cancel because it was too dangerous to go out on the roads and see a big, big college basketball game. duke/north carolina, that game canceled for tonight. looking at pictures coming to us
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from north carolina. let's go to the campus of duke university in north carolina. a junior is joining us via skype. you're from the california area. clearly a lot different than what you're used to. what's it like? >> yeah, it is amazing. before last week, i had never experienced a snow day. now three or four inches on the ground, unbelievable. >> can you show us your video, your camera, your smartphone, what's going on around where you are. >> yeah. so here's duke university road right here, as you can see, there's some parked cars, people just abandoned them. then there's even downed stop signs. so this right here is powerview road, if you go along, you would be at cameron. >> i assume they canceled all classes and other activities at duke, right? >> yeah, so we had classes this morning, then after 1:00 p.m.
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classes were canceled. >> they told everybody go back to your apartments, go back to your dorms, study in your rooms? >> exactly. treacherous on the roads. >> what are your friends out there saying? what are they doing? >> one of my friends was trying to go to lunch. a drive that would normally take ten minutes took him almost three hours. >> wow. >> the north carolinians do not know how to drive in the snow. >> a lot of people in the south don't know how to drive in the snow because they don't get much snow. this is pretty unique and a potentially scary situation. is everyone heeding the advice of the governor and everyone else, just stay inside, don't go anyplace, don't go on the roads? are you seeing a lot of traffic where you are? >> i sure am staying indoors. you can see from my shot, most of the cars that have cleared out. the cars that can. but for the most part we're
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trying to stay indoors and stay safe. >> any storieses that you've heard, i know people have been stuck in their cars for hours right now. we heard it in georgia a couple weeks ago, now in north carolina. what have you heard? any horror stories like that from any of your friends? >> yeah, my friend was actually trying to go pick up some supplies at target and got back to her car and she couldn't -- it took her an hour to get out of the parking lot because the road feeding from the parking lot was too slippery. there was a group of guys that were actually having to push the cars up the road. it took her a few hours to get home. >> what a situation. nick, go back inside. and thanks again for your eyewitness account at what's going on on the campus of duke university. i want to update our viewers, the university of north carolina did accept the advice of the governor and they've canceled tonight's big game between duke and north carolina. major rivalry in college basketball. that game will be rescheduled,
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clearly, but it's not going to happen tonight. the governor telling us just a little while ago he wasn't going to go, he hoped no one would go. it is simply way, way too dangerous to get on the roads in north carolina right now. we'll continue the breaking news coverage right after this. ♪ [ chicken caws ] [ male announcer ] when your favorite food starts a fight, fight back fast with tums. heartburn relief that neutralizes acid on contact and goes to work in seconds. ♪ tum, tum tum tum tums!
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purina dog chow light & healthy is a deliciously tender and crunchy kibble blend. with 20% fewer calories than purina dog chow. isn't it time you discovered the lighter side of dog chow. purina dog chow light & healthy. happening now, breaking news. storm gridlock. drivers abandoning their cars as snow brings traffic in north carolina. on the roads there on the highway to a halt. airline chaos. thousands of flights are canceled leaving would-be passengers stranded as airlines are forced to cut their schedule. storm warning. much of the eastern united states being told to brace for the worst as the storm moves north and intensifies. i'm wolf blitzer. you're in "the situation room." this is cnn breaking news. >> we're following the breaking news.
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potentially catastrophic winter weather coating much of the south and the east right now with dangerous snow, sleet and ice. it's brought traffic to a standstill on north carolina highways where people are abandoning their cars by the hundreds. the national weather service calls it a major winter storm. tens of millions of americans are under warnings this hour. and things are expected to get worse. this storm is forecast to intensify as it moves up the eastern seaboard. it's already proved deadly, at least nine people have now been killed in weather related incidents. almost half a million customers are without power right now. more than 3,000 flights already have been canceled with the airports in atlanta and charlotte especially hard-hit. let's go to north carolina right now where some of the worst conditions have created a crisis. and it's playing out on the roads right now. david mattingly is joining us from charlotte. what's the latest there? >> reporter: wolf, a real sense of deja vu as we're looking
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north to raleigh looking at what's happening there. too many people waiting too late to leave work today and running into way too much snow. it caused a gridlock on the roads there. the state crews were having difficulty getting through the line of cars breaking through that gridlock so they could get the plows in there to actually break everyone free. there have been reports of people abandoning their cars, just leaving them there on the highway. we've been told now that the state will be towing those cars at the owner's expense. looking at the traffic cameras at this hour, it appears that some of that gridlock appears to be moving again, not very well, but it is appearing to be moving again at this hour. now, right now here in charlotte, we had a lot of snow come down fast here, just like they did in raleigh, but the city was prepared for it. most people got away from their jobs before the snow hit here. right now we're seeing a lot of sleet coming down, a little bit of rain mixed with it. this is doing exactly what the forecast said it was going to
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do. and this, wolf, is just the first act. we just got the snow, now we're getting the sleet. tonight we're going to get that freezing rain, and depending on how widespread it is, there could be thousands of more people ending up in the cold and the dark tonight as the electricity goes out. wolf? >> is it your impression -- and you've been there now for a while, david -- the folks of north carolina were warned about what was about to happen and that they were fully prepared for it and clearly this has been a disaster? >> they were prepared here in charlotte. and i can tell you why. they were definitely looking at what happened in atlanta a couple of weeks ago, making sure that they were going to stay out in front of this storm. the state crews and the city crews were putting salt solution down on the roads 48 hours before the first snowflake even fell here. so that means that it wouldn't freeze quite so fast and the plows would be able to make better headway.
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we've seen some very aggressive action here by the city, both on the expressways and on the city streets with plows coming through keeping as much cleared as they possibly can. and those plows jumped into action as soon as there was accumulation. right now the mayor has issued an emergency warning here that's essentially just saying they're going to need assistance in terms of money and resources from the state and possibly the federal government to get through this, but the city so far seems to be out front and giving people the information that they need in time to make good decisions. the governor here being very clear, don't go out tonight. if you have tickets to that unc/duke basketball game and you have to drive, don't. but if you can walk, fine. but that game is going on as scheduled. >> well, i haven't heard yet, they just canceled the game, david. we just got word, official confirmation. university of north carolina chapel hill. >> there you go. >> they've just announced they've accepted the advice of the governor. an hour ago he was here on the
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phone. he said he won't go. he hopes no one goes. they all stay put. if the players and the referees are the only ones there, that would be fine. but they've accepted his advice and decided to cancel that big unc/duke game for tonight. >> let me tell you -- >> go ahead, david. >> definitely a very good decision, because this is going to get worse by the hour as the night goes on, as we continue to have more precipitation here, this snowstorm's going to turn into an ice storm and the roads that are even passable right now will not be passable a few hours from now. >> better to stay home or wherever you are. don't get on the roads right now. david mattingly, thanks very much. we have a first account of that gridlock in north carolina right now. we're joined on the phone from raleigh. tell us what happened to you, mike. what was going on, where are you? are you safe now or are you still in your car? >> i am safe, wolf. i'm home.
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i left work about 1:30 and just got home at 5:30. i lost my cell phone signal and battery went down on me. so i was out of contact for a minute. i still have my spouse on the road and i'm in contact with her. she's probably about eight miles away, in the amount of time that equates to, i'm not sure. so i'm still concerned about her and making sure she gets home safely tonight. >> and we are showing our viewers, mike, some of the pictures that you shared with us. so what was it like in those five hours -- normally it would take you how long to make that drive? >> 35 minutes. >> so it took you five hours. what was it like? >> just i was very nervous at first because it took about an hour to get what normally takes five minutes. so i didn't even know i was going to be able to make it to the interstate. folks going off the side of the road and prevented people from moving forward along with the
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stoplights, but we made it to the interstate and the traffic was actually a little lighter. so we were able to get it moving to 20, 25 miles per hour and make some headway there. >> did you ever thing that it would be -- you might have to abandon your car? >> i got a little nervous about that for sure. i mean, i saw a lot of abandoned cars on the side of the road the entire way home. accidents in front of me. people sliding and slipping, but people were getting out of their cars and helping folks and pushing them out of the way and getting them started. it really was a challenge on what might seem like a small hill with this snow and the ice, because it was a challenge to keep moving forward. >> did anyone say to you when you got up this morning, this was not a day to go to work, just stay home? >> no, but i definitely had my eye on it. at 12:30 we were starting to get some flurries, just little
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flurries floating around, then it came out, the sky just dumped on us. okay, we are out of here. the traffic with everyone leaving at the same time created a certain bottleneck. >> you're living through what atlanta was living through a couple weeks ago. mike crosswhite, thank you very much for sharing your story. we're happy you're safe and sound back home. let's bring in our severe weather expert chad myers. what are the weather conditions like not only where you are in georgia, but throughout the south heading towards the northeast? >> it's truly an impressive event right now. it's almost snowi ining tus ka is a. it's snowing all over the appalachian chain, where david mattingly is right there, changing to sleet and then more sleet for the rest of the night. there's raleigh, you're about to change over in the next half hour, then that snow is into
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richmond and heading into d.c. it's a very large event. we have the snow on the one side, the sleet and ice on the other. then down to the south, we even had a tornado warning for a while down in parts of florida. one thing after another. now, i have been looking at airplanes and there are airplanes in the sky. i know 3,300 planes were canceled today. but there are still 5,600 planes in the air right now. so not every plane didn't fly today, just not very many planes throughout atlanta if any. here's what's going on next, it will snow in the same places it is snowing now but also in d.c. tonight, philadelphia, baltimore, new york, on up to portland, maine. the closer you are to shore, you won't get anything. even a thousand feet in elevation which is west of d.c., west of richmond, you could pick up a foot or more of snow. it's getting very, very dark now. it's going to get dark and cold. if you're stuck on the roadway, you have to wait for somebody to come get you, because the
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governor of north carolina said please do not leave your vehicle. you're safer in it than out of it. we'll come get you. wolf, if there are thousands of car, it will take a while for everybody to get taken care of. >> what is really scary is that people and a lot of people have already lost power, half a million or so, it's getting dark now. it's cold and i'm really worried about the elderly who are stuck in their homes without electricity. that's a potentially dangerous situation. chad, we'll get right back to you. we're staying with the breaking news this hour right here in "the situation room." the killer storm forcing lots of airlines to cancel their flights. and the cancellations are occurring by the thousands. we'll get the latest on the air travel nightmare and new video just coming in just showing how bad the situation is on the north carolina roads. more breaking news. [ laughter ]
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getting reports of clogged roads, abandoned cars in and around several major cities. christina martinson is joining us via skype right now from durham, north carolina. i know you're pregnant. and as you describe yourself, very, very pregnant. what month are you in right now? >> i'm in my eighth month. >> you're in your eighth month. tell us where you were. you were stuck on the road and had a young child with you. what happened? >> my husband and i car pooled in this morning in case things should get bad but it happened a lot more quickly than they were anticipating. by the time he got to me, it took us about the better part of two hours to get to as close to
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our son's day care as we could, then he just left me in the car and took the stroller and walked the last quarter mile to pick up my son. and when he got back in the car, it was pretty crazy. my son was like, i'm wearing two pairs of pants. and then it took us another two hours to get home. and that's a drive that usually takes us about ten minutes. we saw so many people just like -- cars piled up and left on the side of the road and wrecks. and we had to turn around three or four times. it's really, really bad, and it got bad so quickly that people just weren't ready. even though we were warned, it just happened more quickly than you would think possible. >> were you ever really frightened, scared what was going on? >> only once. the third time we turned around we ended up having to cut through a neighborhood that's near our house. we were going down this big hill and suddenly it just bottlenecks and people had come through and tried to put sand, so that you
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could maneuver through the cars that were just abandoned. i don't know if there's been a wreck or if people got stuck trying to go up the hill, but nice that people who live in the neighborhood were there directing traffic and helping us through. but i mean, we were too scared to breathe. i tried to take a picture for you guys, but it was too crazy. >> we keep hearing the same story. when you got up this morning, it wasn't too bad. you thought you'd go to work, then all of a sudden around noon, 1:00, it really got bad and everybody basically left work at the same time and got stuck for hours and hours. we heard the same story a couple weeks ago in the atlanta, georgia, area. so what's the major lesson you've learned from this? next time they say it's going to start snowing, what are you going to do? >> if they say it's going to start snowing at 1:00, i think i'll head home at noon this time. >> some people just didn't even go to work. might have been a good day to just stay home. >> well, it was so crazy because
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you looked outside and the streets were completely dry. i mean, it definitely looked like something was going to happen, but they kept changing the time. so it was like, well, we'll go to work and then, you know, plan to leave early. and then it was just by the time we all got out of there, it was crazy. i mean, the snow was already covered the whole street and people were just driving crazy. >> christina martinson, we're glad you're okay. we're glad your little boy's okay, your husband's okay. good luck with the delivery half a month or so as scheduled. we'll stay in close touch with you. we're glad you're home safe and sound and warm right now, right? you haven't lost power or anything like that. >> no, knock on wood. we're warm and safe and not going anywhere. >> good. stay put until this thing ends. christina, thanks very much. let's bring in our meteorologist jennifer gray who is joining us from atlanta right now. she's outside. people are happy right now they're home safe and sound, n
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jennif jennifer, but if they lose power, half a million people have already lost power, getting dark right now. this is an extremely dangerous situation all around. >> yeah, it really is. you know, the good news is that people have stayed home. people are off the roads. the bad news is this is ice, this is sleet. it is freezing rain. it is definitely weighing down the trees and the power lines. you're exactly right. this is what we're seeing all over town. there's probably a quarter inch of ice on this branch. we've been watching the ice just grow and grow throughout the day. it doesn't take much, wolf, to bring down those trees, bring down the power lines as we're already seeing. and it is cold. temperatures are below freezing and they're not supposed to get above freezing until mid-morning tomorrow. and so folks that have lost power, it is going to be a long night. in fact, we are still seeing the sleet and freezing rain come down. it's possibly going to change over into snow as we go through the overnight hours, but we still have a good 10 to 12 hours of this in atlanta before this
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comes to an end. and so we will see much more before it comes to an end. also, as we've been talking about as well, this is moving on, this is going into places like south carolina, north carolina, going up the mid-atlantic. we're going to see places like d.c., philly, new york and especially those areas inland away from the coast are going to get possibly a foot of snow by the time this is said and done as we go through the next 24 to 36 hours. so this is far from over, wolf, and both in the atlanta area, lucky they stayed home. i'm sure they're watching those pictures in north carolina and glad they stayed home. but yes, the power outages are going to be a problem because this is coming down. i just looked at the radar a few moments ago. we are going to see another push come through of some of the heavier freezing rain and sleet. you can see it just picked up in the last minute or two that i've been talking to you, it's already starting to pick up a little bit. a long night ahead here, wolf. >> everybody if they're inside, even if they don't go outside
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right now, that could be very, very dangerous. jennifer, thanks very much. joining us on the phone right now is bill bell, the mayor of durham, north carolina. mayor, what's going on in durham right now? how bad is it? >> a lot of snow. a lot of snow. >> you have a lot of people stuck on the roads in durham? >> well, we have some on the major highways. this thing really hit us almost sudden. for example, i was having lunch at 12:00 over at duke, and about 1:00 i came out and it looked like it all came down. it took me about three hours to get back to my house, which is normally a 15-minute drive. >> were you warned? did the folks in the durham area have enough warning about what was about to happen? >> we've had the warning. in fact people out on the streets, trucks out working with the state trying to clear roads. but as i said this thing came down probably about 1:00 and just seemed like heaven dropped on us. >> what about power shortages? because this is a nightmare for
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so many people, especially it's so cold, it's dark, elderly folks. are you having a serious problem with power outages? >> fortunately, we haven't had outages reported here in durham. but we're prepared for that in case that happens. in fact, some of our two major malls have kept their doors open for stranded motorists along the interstate highways. but we're prepared for out ages people need to go to places, shelter, we have that open for them also. >> do you have enough help from national guard and others trying to help with stranded people in their cars or on the side of roads? >> as far as i know we've not had to call the national guard, but i'm sure the governor has declared a state of emergency. i declared a state of emergency for the city of durham. if that's needed, we'll be able to get them out there. >> shouldn't you or or authorities in the north carolina area -- i asked this question to the governor this morning -- have told people this morning, this is not a good day to go to work. i know you canceled schools.
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but don't go to work because around midday the snow and the ice they're going to start coming down and you're going to be stuck in traffic? with hindsight should folks have been told stay home? >> you can't tell people to stay home. you can suggest that they stay home and stay off the roads and that message has been going out since the storm has been coming. >> did you tell people to stay home? >> i didn't tell them to stay home. i told them that given the weather conditions we wanted to make sure they stayed off the roads as much as possible. again, this was not supposed to break until 12:00, 1:00, people were taking that into account. >> what do you anticipate, how long will this crisis affect the folks in durham? >> i've declared a state of emergency at least until 12:00 tomorrow, then we'll play it by ear and see how it goes tomorrow. we expect this to be over friday, tapering off thursday.
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>> school is canceled tomorrow. >> schools have been canceled. >> and people are told stay home. >> there's a big game going on, unc and duke. we're telling people to stay home and look at it on tv. >> you may have not heard. they canceled the game tonight. >> that's news to me. the governor was on our program just an hour ago and he said if no one went, just the players and the referee, he thought it was too dangerous. we're told now it has been canceled. they will reschedule. that's good news to you, right? >> very good news. >> i know you were worried about all those folks and we're glad they decided to cancel that game. mayor bill bell of durham, good luck to all the folks in durham. >> thank you and take care. >> we want to share you brand new video. shot from a drone. yes a drone over raleigh, north carolina. it shows you just how powerful this storm is right now.
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you will see the video coming in. it's coming in a second. you'll see it from the drone. let's watch this video coming in. you'll see it coming in, a cnn i-reporter sent this in, this vid video. there you are can see how powerful the storm is, the video coming in to "the situation room," courtesy of a cnn i-reporter. you can see the shot from a drone flying overhead. they've managed to get this pictures for us. it is also forcing the airlines toness kale flights. already 3,000 flights canceled today. rene marsh is working this part of the story for us. >> the lesson here is sometimes your luck really depends on the airline that you pick. when you look at delta, for example, they had the most cancellations for today. we're talking about 1700 cancellations. it makes sense because their hub is in atlanta. atlanta got hit ready hard today. tomorrow they're projecting
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about 1200 cancellations. jetblue, on the other hand, they've had a really rough winter. so far today, though, only 41 cancellations, but tomorrow as the storm makes its way to the new york area they're projecting some 300 cancellations. but what about the planes that do get in the air? today we went behind the scenes to look at the operation that coordinates thousands of planes despite a major storm on the move. >> with the freezing rain, we'll check in with them. it is starting to snow now at charlotte. so no changes to that. >> conference calls every two hours inside the faa command center as another winter storm moves up the east coast dumping rain, ice and snow. on the call, airlines, airports and air traffic control. they're coordinating how to get planes around this winter storm and minimize traveler delay. >> we've been bumped about -- this will be the second or third time. i'm trying to quit counting.
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>> six large screens display the storm. planes in the air and planes grounded. at atlanta's hartsfield airport, the busiest in the world, planes are parked. i see a lot of blue by atlanta. what are you monitoring here? >> the blue is actually the cancellations that are coming in from the carriers. >> atlanta is down to nothing. >> atlanta is pretty much getting down to nothing. >> all airports have a weather plan, and this faa command center in warrington, virginia, helps communicate with 21 regional centers. you're doing real math here as far as how many planes can you de-ice per minute? >> once an airplane de-ice, we want to minimize that time from that happening to them departing. so that's where the numbers really start slowing down. we don't want to put anybody in the position where they're staying on the ramp where they have go back to de-ice. >> you could call this the calm
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after the storm. it really gets busy after the system passes and airlines scramble to get their planes back into the air. at airports like raleigh, all flights in and out canceled and some airlines have already started canceling their overnight flights at other airports. that means that those planes will not be in place in the morning, so fliers should expect another rough morning tomorrow. >> think about it before you head out to the airport for sure. because the planes night not be taking off hey guys! sorry we're late. did you run into traffic? no, just had to stop by the house to grab a few things. you stopped by the house? uh-huh. yea. alright, whenever you get your stuff, run upstairs, get cleaned up for dinner. you leave the house in good shape? yea. yea, of course. ♪ [ sportscaster talking on tv ] last-second field go--