US media unanimously reported on Tuesday that traffic on the I-95 freeway south of the capital Washington had come to a complete standstill after several trucks skidded. The Virginia Transportation Department said on Twitter that an attempt would be made to free the trapped people via nearby exits. Video footage showed hundreds of cars on the icy road.
An NBC correspondent wrote on Twitter that he had been stuck with his dog on the highway for eleven hours overnight. No rescue or recovery vehicles came during that time. CNN spoke on the phone to a woman who had been stuck near Stafford for a good ten hours. The traffic authority said the important north-south freeway I-95 was still closed in both directions at Fredericksburg on Tuesday morning (local time).
Because of Monday’s snowstorm, almost 300,000 households in Virginia were still without electricity on Tuesday, as an overview on the Poweroutage.us website showed. The utility Dominion had warned that in some areas it could take “several days” before the power supply was restored. In the nearby capital Washington, according to the weather service, just under 20 centimeters of fresh snow had been measured within a few hours on Monday.
Source: Nachrichten
