Snow will continue to fall into Sunday evening in Southwestern Pennsylvania and across much of the country, making travel unsafe but not yet leading to major disruptions to essential services, Allegheny County safety and public works leaders said in a late afternoon press conference.
Some areas of the county had already seen a foot of snow by 4 p.m., with others at around 8 inches, said county Emergency Services Chief Matthew Brown. The county had issued 16 disaster declarations covering 20 municipalities, though Brown noted that those administrative actions were taken largely to allow sharing of resources and rapid contracting to address urgent needs.
“It’s not business as normal and they are dealing with tough conditions,” Brown said.
Lifesaving systems including the 911 center and all hospitals remained operational.
Brown said county dispatch has seen an average number and range of calls for ambulance service, and medics have been able to reach people in need, with some short delays. The county has called in plows, including at least one PennDOT truck, to help ambulances to get to patients.
County Public Works Director Stephen Shanley said he has deployed 26 salt trucks to plow the 357 miles of county-maintained roads. When the snow stops falling they will apply salt, and will run constantly until all county roads are clear.
Utilities remained largely unaffected, with Duquesne Light disclosing only a few, minor power outages and Pittsburgh Water and Pennsylvania American Water largely disruption-free. Pittsburgh International Airport remained in operation, though the Airport Authority advised departing travelers to check with their airlines before coming to the terminal due to the large number of cancelled flights nationally.
Many amenities, from UPMC Children’s Express Care locations to Giant Eagle grocery stores, did not open or closed early Sunday. Pittsburgh Regional Transit buses were running around an hour behind schedule, and at times were unable to reach parts of Penn Hills, the Hill District, Garfield, Duquesne, the North Side, Braddock Hills and West Mifflin, according to the agency’s social media posts. Shortly after 5 p.m., PRT suspended all bus and rail service, with normal operations expected to resume Monday morning. The agency said ACCESS paratransit will attempt to operate Monday but riders should expect delays.
The National Weather Service predicted mid-afternoon that Pittsburgh might see a few more inches, with most of the snow fallen by 1 a.m. Monday morning snow might add another half inch.
Next up will be days of extreme cold which Chief Brown characterized as “very dangerous.” Exposure for even five minutes can cause frostbite.
With white streets, piles of snow everywhere and plunging temperatures, the region won’t see an average Monday.
Pittsburgh Public Schools will be closed for the day, and many other educational institutions and other organizations are closing, shifting to remote instruction or otherwise limiting services.
All non-essential county functions will be closed Monday. Courts will be closed, except for Arraignment Court, where emergency protection from abuse orders can be obtained.
Adults without children in need of shelter can visit Second Avenue Commons at 700 Second Avenue, in Uptown, or call the Allegheny Link at 1-866-730-2368. On Saturday night 140 people stayed at the shelter. Families with children experiencing homelessness can contact the Link. Child abuse and elder abuse hotlines are open.
County officials cautioned residents to:
- Avoid overloading electrical circuits with space heaters and keep combustible materials away from heat sources.
- Prepare for power outages, but if they occur use generators only outside and 10 feet from the home.
- Avoid overexertion and injuries in snow shoveling.
- Continue to stay off the roads until they are clear.
Mayor: Stay home, check on neighbors
Mayor Corey O’Connor said during a Friday press conference the city was preparing for a “worst-case scenario.”
“Please check on your neighbors, your family, your friends,” O’Connor said.
He said he believes the city has sufficient salt (8,000 tons) and that garbage and recycling trucks would attach plows to supplement the city’s snow plow fleet.
He said the Department of Public Works has 75 trucks with plows and salt spreaders ready, though the number is short dozens of trucks that are in need of repairs or replacement.
“We are asking residents … stick to main roads if you can. If you don’t have to go out, please stay home,” O’Connor said.
He urged residents to call 311, not 911, for snow removal concerns.
Trash collection for Monday has been postponed, and crews “are going to focus on snow removal.”
Ice, bitter cold plague much of the nation
Across roughly half of the nation, from the Southwest to New England, the storm dumped sleet, freezing rain and snow on Sunday, bringing subzero temperatures and paralyzing air and road traffic. In many areas, tree branches and power lines snapped under the weight of ice, and about a million homes and businesses in the Southeast were left without electricity.
The ice and snowfall were expected to continue into Monday in much of the country, followed by very low temperatures, which could cause “dangerous travel and infrastructure impacts” to linger for several days, the National Weather Service said.
Heavy snow was forecast from the Ohio Valley to the Northeast, while “catastrophic ice accumulation” threatened from the Lower Mississippi Valley to the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast.
“It is a unique storm in the sense that it is so widespread,” weather service meteorologist Allison Santorelli said in a phone interview. “It was affecting areas all the way from New Mexico, Texas, all the way into New England, so we’re talking like a 2,000 mile spread.”
President Donald Trump had approved emergency declarations for at least a dozen states by Saturday. The Federal Emergency Management Agency pre-positioned commodities, staff and search and rescue teams in numerous states, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the state was bracing for the longest cold stretch and highest snow totals it has seen in years. Communities near the Canadian border have already seen record-breaking subzero temperatures, with Watertown registering minus 34 degrees Fahrenheit and Copenhagen minus 49, she said.
“An Arctic siege has taken over our state,” Hochul said. “It is brutal, it is bone chilling and it is dangerous.”
In Corinth, Mississippi, where power outages were widespread, Caterpillar told employees at its remanufacturing site to stay home Monday and Tuesday.
“May God have mercy on Corinth, MS! … The sound of the trees snapping, exploding & falling through the night have been unnerving to say the least,” resident Kathy Ragan wrote on Facebook.
On the east side of Nashville, Jami Joe, 41, had power Sunday afternoon but she feared the juice might not last long as ice-heavy limbs from mature oak and pecan trees continued to crash around her house. “It’s only a matter of time if a limb strikes a power line,” she predicted.
In Little Rock, Arkansas, officials say the weight of accumulated snow and sleet likely caused the collapse of an awning onto several houseboats. Six people were rescued and 22 were evacuated, Pulaski County officials said.
Storm snarls flights
As of Sunday morning, about 213 million people were under some sort of winter weather warning, Santorelli said. The number of customers without power stood at about 1 million, according to poweroutage.us.
Tennessee was hardest hit with about 337,000 customers out by midday Sunday, and Louisiana and Mississippi all had more than 100,000 customers in the dark. Tens of thousands of homes and businesses were without power in Kentucky, Georgia, Alabama and West Virginia.
Some 11,000 flights were canceled Sunday and more than 14,000 delayed, according to the flight tracker flightaware.com. Airports in Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, North Carolina, New York and New Jersey were hit especially hard.
At Philadelphia International Airport, inside displays registered scores of canceled flights and few vehicles could be seen arriving Sunday morning. At Reagan National in Washington, virtually all flights were canceled.
Bitter cold makes things worse
Even once the ice and snow stop falling, the danger will continue, Santorelli warned.
“Behind the storm it’s just going to get bitterly cold across basically the entirety of the eastern two-thirds of the nation, east of the Rockies,” she said. That means the ice and snow won’t melt as fast, which could hinder some efforts to restore power and other infrastructure.
Along the Gulf Coast, temperatures were balmy Sunday, hitting the high 60s and low 70s, but thermometers were expected to drop into the high 20s and low 30s there by Monday morning. The National Weather Service warned of damaging winds and a slight risk of severe storms and possibly even a brief tornado.
In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at least five people who died were found outside as temperatures plunged Saturday before the snows arrived in earnest, though the cause of their deaths remained under investigation.
The Democrat pleaded with New Yorkers to stay inside and off roads: “We want every single New Yorker to make it through this storm.”
Two men died of hypothermia related to the storm in Caddo Parish in Louisiana, according to the state health department there.
Across the affected areas, officials announced that school would be canceled or held remotely Monday.
Recovery could take a while
In Oxford, Mississippi, police on Sunday morning used social media to tell residents to stay home as the danger of being outside was too great. Local utility crews were also pulled from their jobs during the overnight hours.
“Due to life-threatening conditions, Oxford Utilities has made the difficult decision to pull our crews off the road for the night,” the utility company posted on Facebook early Sunday. “Trees are actively snapping and falling around our linemen while they are in the bucket trucks.”
Tippah Electric Power in Mississippi said there was “catastrophic damage” and that it could be “weeks instead of days” to restore everyone.
The Tennessee Valley Authority provides power to some utilities across the region, and spokesperson Scott Brooks said the bulk power system remains stable but overnight icing had caused power interruptions in north Mississippi, north Alabama, southern middle Tennessee and the Knoxville, Tennessee, area. Icy roads made travel dangerous in north Georgia, where the Cherokee County Sheriff’s office posted on Facebook, “You know it’s bad when Waffle House is closed!!!” along with a photo of a shuttered restaurant. Whether the chain’s restaurants are open — known as the Waffle House Index — has become an informal way to gauge the severity of weather disasters across the South.
Want to share your neighborhood’s snow situation with Pittsburgh’s Public Source readers? If so, email rich@publicsource.org.
Rich Lord is the managing editor at Pittsburgh’s Public Source and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.
Charlie Wolfson is the local government reporter for Pittsburgh’s Public Source. He can be reached at charlie@publicsource.org.
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