Authorities have been scrambling to clear a path for vehicles stuck on a major Virginia interstate after a storm dropped several inches of snow last night
Among those stranded in the area: US Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, who said he was still stuck in traffic at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday — 19 hours after starting his drive. He did not specify what road he was on; many secondary roads in the region also were blocked by downed trees or wintry conditions, authorities said.
Other motorists expressed frustration on social media as they sat in vehicles on I-95, unable to move and worried about below-freezing overnight and morning temperatures after a storm that dropped more than a foot of snow in the Fredericksburg area and left more than 400,000 customers in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast without power.
By 7 a.m. Tuesday, Susan Phalen and her four dogs had been stuck on I-95 just south of Stafford for more than 10 hours, and there were no signs that traffic in her northbound lanes would move soon.
“This one for the record books,” she told CNN on Tuesday morning. “I could have walked there faster.”
She said she started with a full tank of gas, and has been able to keep her car running for heat. Temperatures in the area dipped into the teens overnight.
“A lot of people … in the vicinity where I am have been turning their cars off to save gas, and then they’ll turn the car back on to heat it up a bit,” she told CNN by phone.
Motorists with medical or life-threatening emergencies should call 911, VDOT said on Twitter.
‘This is unprecedented’
Local and state emergency personnel are assisting disabled vehicles, clearing downed trees and rerouting drivers, he tweeted.
The commonwealth is also working to set up warming shelters with localities, the tweet says.
“As VDOT removes disabled vehicles, and plows/treats road to make it safe for passage as they are removed, (Virginia State Police) troopers will reach each driver,” VDOT said.
The Fredericksburg area received at least 14 inches of snow from the storm, according to the National Weather Service in the Baltimore/Washington area. Fredericksburg sits between Richmond, Virginia, and Washington, DC.
An estimated 20 to 30 trucks were stuck on I-95 northbound near the Thornburg exit, according to VDOT, which said towing crews were on the scene.
“We know people have been stopped for extraordinary time periods leading up to these closure areas, but we are clearing trucks one by one to break through this blockage, and we will get to each driver and restore traffic flow,” Kelly Hannon, spokesperson for the VDOT Fredericksburg District, told CNN.
“Crews continue to work intensely to tow vehicles that are stuck and blocking the interstate near mile markers 136 in Stafford County, and then plow and treat the interstate to prevent follow-on crashes,” Hannon said. “This is also occurring where traffic remains stopped on Interstate 95 northbound at mile marker 117 in Spotsylvania County.”
Power outages have knocked out traffic cameras in the area of I-95 near Fredericksburg where travel is stalled, hindering VDOT’s response, Hannon said.
CNN en Español correspondent Gustavo Valdés was among those stuck in traffic. He said when he stopped for gas around 6 p.m., his GPS said he was two hours from Washington. By 1 a.m. Tuesday, he still hadn’t arrived.
Valdés said he exited the highway near Quantico, Virginia, but the side roads were also jammed. Route 1A, which runs parallel to I-95 in the area, was blocked by jackknifed trucks, which were preventing snowplows from getting through.
Valdés said he considered pulling to the side of the road to spend the night in his car because he couldn’t find an available hotel room, but traffic had started moving again.
Some four-wheel-drive vehicles helped create new paths through the snow for other vehicles to follow, he said.
It could take several weeks for all that snow to melt, CNN meteorologist Pedram Javaheri said, explaining that the white layer of snow cover reflects sunlight, essentially acting as a coolant that prevents the ground surface from warming enough to melt it.
On average, it takes about three days of temperatures above 50 degrees for about 2 to 4 inches of snow to melt, Javaheri said, and the Washington area is forecast to stay below that mark through at least the end of the week.
3 killed when SUV collided with snowplow, officials say
Three deaths were reported in Maryland after an SUV with four occupants collided with a snowplow, according to Shiera Goff, spokesperson for the Montgomery County Police Department. Two women and one man were pronounced dead at the scene, Goff said, and a fourth victim, a man, was taken to an area hospital where he is in critical condition.
The investigation into the cause of the collision is ongoing, Goff said.
In the Southeast, two children were killed by falling trees Monday morning, officials said.
“There are trees down all over the county, particularly here in Townsend, because we are right at the foothills of the Great Smoky National Park,” BCSO Public Information Officer Marian O’Briant told WVLT. “There are a lot of trees; it was kind of a wet heavy snow, so trees are still falling right now.”
CNN has reached out to DeKalb County Fire Rescue and the Blount County Sheriff’s Office.
Winter weather also slowed travel in New Jersey, where state police reported 160 accidents and 245 motorist requests for aid, according to Col. Patrick Callahan, the state police superintendent.
In Atlantic City, 9.5 inches of snow was reported.
Southwestern New Jersey received between 1 and 4 inches of snow, while the southeastern part of the state got somewhere between 6 to 11 inches, Gov. Phil Murphy said.
CNN’s Jennifer Henderson, Alisha Ebrahimji, Amir Vera and Michael Guy contributed to this report.
