Environment

State of Emergency in Virginia and Washington DC Snow, Photos

by Amy Judd | December 19, 2009 at 09:49 am

5969 views | 56 Recommendations | 4 comments

A state of emergency has been declared in Virginia today due to the severe winter storm that is moving through the region. The storm has caused airport and travel delays across the eastern seaboard, and Governor Joe Manchin has authorized the use of the National Guard for emergency assistance to clear the snow.

Motorists are stranded all over the state, with many people without power, and the snow is still coming down.

“State and local emergency management officials are joining highway crews and assisting as best as possible where needed,” Manchin said. “We continue to monitor the storm and our road crews are working around the clock to help emergency crews and first responders get where they need to be."

Three people have died in Virginia due to the weather.

The state of emergency is now in effect for at least 30 days. The state's Emergency Operations Plan and the Emergency Operation's Center have also been activiated and these allow for more resources to be available to those that might need them.

In Washington DC there are also hundreds stranded as the snow keeps falling and Washington DC, Dulles International airport (IAD) has been closed to flights.

The National Weather service has issued a blizzard warning for DC and snow accumulation is expected to be anywhere from 12 to 22 inches with winds as high as 40 mph. This will create whiteout conditions.

In Washington, Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said the storm is "perhaps the biggest we've seen in several years."

"We are going to throw everything we have at it to keep the District open for business on this busy pre-holiday weekend," Fenty said when he announced the snow emergency.

DC issued a snow emergency at 7am today and officials are urging everyone who does not need to travel to stay home.

At this point, parts of the DC metro are also affected.

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JustMyOpinion

at 12:21 on December 19th, 2009

Perfect end to the Copenhagen summit. :)

dfndr13

at 22:54 on December 19th, 2009

And now for something relevant....

I saw a storm like this years ago in northeast Ohio. A week later the National Guard was still using front end loaders to load snow into dump trucks to be taken out of the city to be dumped. Right now they are going to be short on places to push all this white stuff, they are going to have to move some of it and with temperatures staying below freezing, it's not going to melt soon either. We'll get a teaser of warmth on Tuesday afternoon, but the real warm-up won't come until later in the week.