Among those stranded in the area: US Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, who said he was still stuck in traffic on Tuesday at 8:30 a.m., 7 p.m. after starting his commute. He did not specify which road he was on; Many secondary roads in the region have also been blocked by felled trees or winter conditions, authorities said.
Other motorists have expressed frustration on social media as they sat in vehicles on I-95, unable to move and worried about below freezing temperatures overnight and in the morning after a storm that dropped more than a foot of snow in the Fredericksburg area and left more than 400,000 Mid-Atlantic and Southeast customers without power.
At 7 a.m. Tuesday, Susan Phalen and her four dogs had been stranded on I-95 just south of Stafford for more than 10 hours, and there was no indication that traffic in her northbound lanes would move anytime soon.
“This one for the record books,” she told CNN Tuesday morning. “I could have gone faster.”
She said she started off with a full tank of gas and was successful in getting her car to run for heat. Temperatures in the area plunged into teens overnight.
“A lot of people… in my neighborhood have turned off their cars to save gas, and then they’ll turn the car back on to warm it up a bit,” she told CNN over the phone.
Motorists facing medical or life-threatening emergencies should call 911, VDOT said on Twitter.
“It’s unprecedented”
Local and state emergency personnel are helping broken down vehicles, cleaning up downed trees and reorienting drivers, he tweeted.
The Commonwealth is also working to set up heated shelters with localities, the tweet said.
“As the VDOT removes disabled vehicles and plows / treats the road to make it safe for passage as they are pulled out, soldiers (from the Virginia State Police) will reach out to every driver.” , said the VDOT.
The Fredericksburg area received at least 14 inches of snow from the storm, according to the National Weather Service for the Baltimore / Washington area. Fredericksburg is located between Richmond, Virginia, and Washington, DC.
An estimated 20 to 30 trucks were stranded on the northbound I-95 near the Thornburg exit, according to VDOT, which said tow crews were at the scene.
“We know that people have been pulled over for extraordinary times leading up to these closures, but we are cleaning the trucks one by one to get through this blockage, and we will get to every driver and restore traffic,” Kelly Hannon, door- word of the VDOT Fredericksburg District, told CNN.
“Crews continue to work intensely to tow stranded and blocking vehicles near the 136 mile markers in Stafford County, then plow and treat the freeway to avoid follow-up accidents,” Hannon said. “This also occurs where traffic remains stopped on Interstate 95 northbound at kilometer 117 in Spotsylvania County.”
Power outages have cut off traffic cameras in the area of I-95 near Fredericksburg, where travel is blocked, hampering the VDOT’s response, Hannon said.
CNN en Español correspondent Gustavo Valdés was among those stuck in traffic. He said when he pulled over to refuel around 6 p.m. his GPS showed he was two hours from Washington. At 1 a.m. Tuesday, he still hadn’t arrived.
Valdés said he got off the freeway near Quantico, Va., But side roads were also blocked. Route 1A, which runs parallel to I-95 in the area, was blocked by jack-up trucks, preventing snowplows from passing.
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 to flow again.
Some four-wheel-drive vehicles have helped create new paths in 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 the snow cover reflects sunlight, essentially acting as a coolant that keeps the ground surface from cooling. heat enough to melt it.
On average, it takes about three days in temperatures above 50 degrees for about 2-4 inches of snow to melt, Javaheri said, and the Washington area is expected to stay below that mark at least until late. of the week.
3 dead in collision between SUV and snowplow, officials say
Three deaths have been reported in Maryland after an SUV with four occupants collided with a snow plow, according to Shiera Goff, spokesperson for the Montgomery County Police Department. Two women and a 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.
Investigation into the cause of the collision is ongoing, Goff said.
In the southeast, two children were killed by fallen trees on Monday morning, officials said.
“There are trees all over the county, especially here in Townsend, because we’re right at the foot of Great Smoky National Park,” Marian O’Briant, BCSO’s public information officer, told WVLT . “There are a lot of trees; it was kind of heavy, wet snow, so the trees are still falling right now.”
CNN has contacted DeKalb County Fire Department and the Blount County Sheriff’s Office.
Winter conditions also slowed travel in New Jersey, where state police reported 160 crashes and 245 requests for motorist assistance, according to Col. Patrick Callahan, state police superintendent.
In Atlantic City, 9.5 inches of snow were reported.
Southwestern New Jersey received between 1 and 4 inches of snowfall, while the southeastern part of the state received between 6 and 11 inches, Gov. Phil Murphy said.
CNN’s Jennifer Henderson, Alisha Ebrahimji, Amir Vera, and Michael Guy contributed to this report.
