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Monster sprawling storm sweeps across US, blast snow across 15 states, 85 million residents in its path

By FnF Desk | PUBLISHED: 23, Jan 2016, 15:29 pm IST | UPDATED: 23, Jan 2016, 15:29 pm IST

Monster sprawling storm sweeps across US, blast snow across 15 states, 85 million residents in its path NY: The sprawling storm will blast snow across 15 states beginning Friday afternoon and evening and continuing well into Sunday, forecasters say.

A monster snowstorm that could bury the American capital under more than two and a half feet of snow swept across the US EastCoast with 85 million residents in its path, bringing the region to a virtual standstill.

Governors in at least 10 states -- Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky -- declared states of emergency Friday as the snowstorm began.

With the weatherman warning that the epic storm dubbed "Snowmageddon 2016"

would last for 36 hours until early hours of Sunday, travel was disrupted in at least five major airport hubs, with over 7,600 flights cancelled on Friday and Saturday.

The ripple effect extended to Los Angeles International Airport, with 86 cancelled arriving and departing flights, according to CNN.

By Friday evening over 130,000 people had lost power as Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York faced blizzard conditions with winds of up to 50 miles an hour.

Cities from Nashville in Tennessee to New York started emergency operations to respond to what the National Weather Service deemed a "potentially crippling winter storm."

The Washington region's mass transit system took what officials called an "exceedingly rare" step of shutting down for the weekend.

That has prompted rare blizzard warnings not only for Washington, D.C., but also Baltimore, New York City, Philadelphia, Trenton, New Jersey, and Long Island, New York.

"We see this as a major storm. It has life and death implications. And all the residents of the District of Columbia should treat it that way," Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser said.

 The main priority, Bowser said, was to keep people safe, from students to commuters to the homeless. Public schools were closed Friday, the Metro will stop operating at 11 p.m. and outreach workers will try to find shelter for people who would otherwise sleep outside.

Federal government workers were told to leave work at noon Friday ahead of the front edge of the blizzard.

The storm has killed at least ten people, including six in North Carolina who died in traffic accidents on icy roads.

 North Carolina Highway Patrol reported 1,200 crashes from midnight Thursday to 5 p.m. Friday. An estimated nearly 137,000 people were without power in North Carolina as of 9 p.m. Friday night, the North Carolina Department of Public safety said.

In South Carolina, around 30,000 were without electricity Friday evening, the state emergency management agency said.

Where there weren't blizzard warnings, there were fears of other dangerous conditions. Various winter weather warnings, watches and advisories were in effect in more than 20 states, from New York to South Carolina to Kansas, the Weather Channel reported. That covers more than 85 million people — more than a quarter of the US population.

 The National Weather Service warned of "extremely dangerous travel" conditions and "numerous power outages" across the region.

Nearly 3,000 flights were cancelled Friday.

Philadelphia International Airport preemptively canceled all Saturday flights in anticipation of up to 18 inches of snow. American Airlines canceled all of its Friday flights out of the Washington, Baltimore and Charlotte, North Carolina, airports.

 Amtrak canceled several national services for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, including Crescent service from New York to New Orleans, Cardinal service from New York to Chicago and Silver Meteor service from New York to Miami.

"This is going to be a legitimate blizzard," said Ari Sarsalari, a meteorologist for The Weather Channel. "Some of these [snow] numbers are absolutely staggering."

Saturday will be "an absolute mess," he added, predicting that travel would be "literally impossible anywhere in the Mid-Atlantic region."