Winter Storm Sparks Thousands of Flight Cancellations (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport here, bracing for ice coming in this storm. More than 3,300 flights canceled across the country today. More than 6,000 flights canceled tomorrow as airports across the country are grappling with the monster storm. That's according to FlightAware. Major hubs have been gearing up for the onslaught of cancellations and delays and other changes, not just during the storm, but afterwards. CNN Aviation correspondent Pete Muntean has the latest.

[00:00:31] Speaker 2: Things for travelers only get more maddening from here on out. And Saturday and Sunday stand to be the worst days for U.S. air travel in the last year. We're talking cancellations in the thousands. Some major airline hubs in the path of this storm. Dallas-Fort Worth, Memphis, Nashville, all planning on getting a major hit from this storm, including some places like Atlanta, Hartsfield-Jackson. The Jackson International Airport, one of the busiest airports in the world, where airport officials insist that they are ready for this storm. They have the plows ready to go and they have the de-icing equipment ready to go. Here is what airlines are doing. They are offering passengers what's called travel waivers, meaning they can change or cancel their flights free of charge if they're on a long list of impacted cities. Airlines are trying to move planes out of the path of the storm, along with their crews and bringing in extra employees to the airports themselves. To try and make it so that when this storm passes, things can get back to normal more quickly. But the big issue, the lingering issue, is the cold. And here at Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C., the highs next week are anticipated to not crest above 30 degrees Fahrenheit. That'll make it especially tough for the workers on the ramp here at the airport, meaning it will be a slow, tough go for airlines and travel from here on out. Pete Muntean, CNN, Reagan.

[00:01:57] Speaker 1: Thank you, Pete. Let me take you outside now. We're seeing the snow coming down across much of the country. You've got Oklahoma City on the left of the screen. You can see snow blanketing the city, especially the streets there. And on the right, Little Rock, Arkansas, roads covered in snow. Be careful out there. Stay in if you can. We're tracking a major winter storm that is now really ramping up across a huge swath of the country this morning. Let's take a look at where this winter storm is now. Starting to head to the northeast, but it's still slamming the south and midwest. The snow, sleet and freezing rain will stretch over a thousand miles today and destructive amounts will start to build up in eastern Texas through the Mississippi Valley. And Texas is already seeing more than 25,000 power outages. That's only expected to continue to rise for the areas waiting on the storm and watching. They're preparing as best they can. They're salting roads. Getting support. Supplies. Getting electricity crews ready for the outages. And neighbors are looking out for each other. In Washington, D.C., volunteers are ready to help out with help people who cannot shovel their way out of the storm.

[00:03:10] Speaker 3: Why'd you come out today to pick up a shovel and volunteer with Snow Heroes?

[00:03:14] Speaker 4: So funny enough, I actually used to work for the D-Dot snow team and I changed jobs this year. And since I can't work for the snow team for the district, you know, that I decided, let me just volunteer so I can give back.

[00:03:28] Speaker 1: All right, the team here at CNN is covering this storm across the country. CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar, correspondent Ivan Rodriguez, he's in Dallas. National correspondent Rafael Romo, he is in Atlanta. Let's get to Ivan first in Texas. I got a preview of your shot during my last show and you were getting some snow down there. So give us an idea of what's happening now.

[00:03:53] Speaker 5: Victor, good morning. It was definitely snowing. A lot harder than it is right now. It seemed like the snow eased, but that freezing rain is still coming down and the temperatures will, of course, it's still freezing out here as well. Within the last 10 minutes or so, we saw some people salting some of these sidewalks. That's an image that we've now begun to see here in front of American Airlines Center where we're standing here in downtown Dallas. And in talking about preparations, before this storm started, we actually went to a hardware store and we were speaking with the manager there, talking about how are people prepared. What are they buying? And he told me a couple of things. One was generators and they were completely sold out of generators. They were also buying propane, faucet covers, just trying to prepare for this storm. And, of course, we're talking about ice here in Dallas, up to maybe half an inch of ice as possible, which could bring down tree branches. It could damage power lines. The power grid, Victor, has been a big topic of conversation. A lot of people remembering that storm from five years ago. That was a big one. A lot of people remembering that storm from five years ago. That left millions of people without power. But we're also keeping an eye on the airport, specifically here in Dallas, the two major airports, Dallas-Fort Worth and Love Field. At Dallas-Fort Worth, more than 74 percent of flights there have been canceled. At Love Field, more than 60 percent of flights have been canceled. Today will be hectic at the airport. Tomorrow, a lot of cancellations across the country as well that we're keeping an eye on. All right.

[00:05:21] Speaker 1: Ivan Rodriguez for us in Dallas. Thank you very much. Now, in the southeast, people are preparing for what could be a storm. It's going to be some of the worst winter weather in years in spots that really are not used to snow or ice or sleet. Florida and Georgia are working together to send road crews and electric crews to North Georgia to help out with equipment like plow trucks and salt spreaders. CNN's Rafael Romo joins us from Atlanta. How's it looking so far? Hi.

[00:05:48] Speaker 6: Good morning, Victor. Well, it's a cloudy morning, but beautiful here in Atlanta. It's calm right now, but in the last 24 hours, we've had a lot of rain. We have noticed many people rushing to the stores to stock up on food, water, and other basic necessities to get ready for the storm making its way to this part of the country. Snow and dangerous ice are already falling in the south-central U.S. We saw Ivan Rodriguez's report just a few moments ago, and it's spreading east. This storm is spreading east towards states like Georgia, here in Georgia, and it's already pummeling Texas and Arkansas. Earlier today, we got images from Fayetteville. Arkansas, where it started snowing overnight, and snow plows were already working on the roads before sunrise. Here in Atlanta, officials at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport announced Friday they had more than 100,000 gallons of liquid brine and de-icer on hand, along with nearly 100 tons of solid de-icer and a sand-salt mix for the world's busiest airport. The storm will impact more than. 2,000 miles from Texas to New England through the weekend. The East Coast is bracing for the storm. The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for the New York City and surrounding areas, calling for heavy snow with total accumulations between 10 and 14 inches. New York officials say they're ready to face this challenge.

[00:07:22] Speaker 7: We will over-communicate with New Yorkers. We are going to tell you. At every instance, when we have new information about the storm, what it is.

[00:07:29] Speaker 8: Be prepared for this all year round. We'll have 2,000 sanitation workers working on every shift. They'll be working 12-hour shifts.

[00:07:40] Speaker 6: And, Victor, the impact of the storm is already being felt at airports across the country as the number of U.S. flight cancellations continues to jump. According to FlightAware, more than 3,250 flights are canceled today. And more. More than 5,900 more are canceled Sunday. Just to give you an idea about the situation at airports across the nation, Sunday is already the worst day for U.S. flight cancellations in the past year. Victor, now back to you.

[00:08:12] Speaker 1: Wow. Rafael Romo with the reporting there from Atlanta. Thank you very much. Let me take you to Quincy, Massachusetts. Officials are trying a pretty unique way to push people to move their cars so that plows and emergency crews can actually do their jobs. They're using fake tickets to get the message across. This really shows just how critical every minute is with a storm this big.

[00:08:36] Speaker 9: We put fake tickets on cars just to warn people that we will be towing. We try to give them some advance notice. We go out with the police on loudspeakers, ask people to move their cars because that's one of the biggest issues we have, parking.

[00:08:48] Speaker 10: There's people that have medical conditions that get very nervous and anxious of something like this, and that's why we've got to move those cars so if there is an incident, we can get that ambulance to that house.

[00:08:57] Speaker 1: CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar is with me now. This storm is huge. Some people still a day away from feeling the worst of it, but some people are getting hit now.

[00:09:08] Speaker 11: Yeah, that's right. I mean, when you look at the expanse of how many people are under these winter weather alerts, again, it stretches such a large distance. Take a look at this. Winter storm warnings cover more than 1,400 counties. That is the most on record since at least 2008. Again, just to kind of show you that it's very rare to get this many. People impacted all by the same system. We'll be right back.