The frigid weather in Texas caused the cancellation of nearly 1,500 flights nationwide and brought traffic to a standstill on an interstate through Arkansas.
Many auto collisions were reported in Austin, Texas, with at least one fatality according to the Austin Fire Department. In Travis County, Texas, which includes Austin, police and sheriff’s deputies have been responding to new crashes about every three minutes since 8:00 a.m., according to the Austin-Travis County Traffic Report Page.
Over 700 flights to or from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and over 250 to or from Dallas Love Field were canceled or delayed Tuesday, according to the tracking service FlightAware. At Dallas-Fort Worth, a major U.S. airport hub, over 40% of the flights had been canceled.
Dallas-based Southwest Airlines has canceled more than 500 flights and delayed over 250 more, FlightAware reported.
In Arkansas, Interstate 40 Tuesday morning was ice-coated and "extremely hazardous” in the Forrest City area, according to the city's fire department. Pictures posted on social media showed the crumpled cab of a semi-trailer.
The department responded to two bad wrecks and about 15 other crashes Tuesday morning, Division Chief Jeremy Sharp said by telephone. In many of the crashes, the drivers pick up speed on the highway but run into trouble when they reach a bridge, he said.
"They hit the ice and they start wrecking,” he said.
"When I-40 shuts down like that, that can be hours of waiting,” said John Gadberry, who lives in Colt, Arkansas, not far from the highway. "I-40 is usually one of the first things that freeze over due to its slight elevation.”
By late Tuesday morning, I-40 was cleared and traffic had resumed, the Arkansas Department of Transportation announced. The interstate connects Little Rock, Arkansas, to Memphis, Tennessee.
The storm began Monday as part of an expected "several rounds” of wintry precipitation through Wednesday across Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Tennessee, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Marc Chenard.
"Generally light to moderate freezing rain resulting in some pretty significant ice amounts,” Chenard said.
"We're expecting ice accumulations potentially a quarter inch or higher than far south as Austin, Texas, up to Dallas over to Little Rock, Arkansas, towards Memphis, Tennessee, and even getting close to Nashville, Tennessee,” according to Chenard.
The flight disruptions follow Southwest’s meltdown in December which began with a winter storm but continued after most other airlines had recovered. Southwest canceled about 16,700 flights over the last 10 days of the year, and the U.S. Transportation Department is investigating.
The weather service has issued a winter storm warning for a large swath of Texas and parts of southeastern Oklahoma and an ice storm warning across the midsection of Arkansas into western Tennessee.
A winter weather advisory is in place in much of the rest of Arkansas and Tennessee and into much of Kentucky, West Virginia and southern parts of Indiana and Ohio.
Schools and colleges in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas planned to close or go to virtual learning Tuesday.
