Winter storm in the United States: Motorists stranded for dozens of hours

Many motorists were stranded on a highway in the Northeastern United States Tuesday morning, with some spending nearly 24 hours in their vehicles after a winter storm that covered the area with snow and caused several trees to fall.

The 86-kilometer section of the I-95 freeway leading to the US capital, Washington, was closed on Tuesday as authorities tried to block roads with logs, immovable trucks, snow piles and more.

“We know many passengers have been stranded on the I – 95 freeway for the longest 24 hours,” a Virginia Department of Transportation spokesman said Tuesday, adding that the situation was “without precedent”. .

“We were stuck there for 12 hours,” an American, Jeff, said on Instagram on Tuesday morning. The winter sun, which replaced the storm on Monday, failed to deliver the trucks and cars stranded around it.

On a snowy night from Monday to Tuesday, the net surfer said the 40-kilometer distance between the two trucks should be “blocked in the stomach of the beast I-95” after 12 hours. “Okay, we have some food and water,” he told his subscribers.

In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s former deputy wife, Democratic Senator Tim Cain from Virginia, was one of the drivers caught in the axis, which is considered one of the worst in the country in normal times.

“I started my journey (to Washington), which usually takes two hours, at 1:00 pm yesterday. Nineteen hours later, I’m still far from the Capitol, ”US-elected officials said as he sat down and tweeted Tuesday morning with a photo of his car stuck behind three trucks.

“Everyone be careful,” said the former governor of Virginia.

“We fell asleep while freezing in our car” -5 C, father Kyle Holland said on Instagram on Tuesday that he was stuck “almost 24 hours” on the highway with his wife and his two children. .

After a 5km walk, the family was finally greeted at midnight by a resident near the exit, but “we do not know when we can leave,” he added.

Florida-based CBS correspondent Jim Diffede said on Twitter that he had been stranded for more than 20 hours and had not seen any freelancers or tow trucks for 12 hours.

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam, who tweeted that all residents of Virginia should continue to avoid I-95, assures us that his teams have been working “all night” and will continue to work to remove the freeway and provide warm shelter for evacuees. Road.

The storm, which hit the region on Monday, caused about twenty centimeters of snow, paralyzed the capital Washington and detained President Joe Biden on his Air Force One flight for half an hour.

As of Tuesday, nearly 255,000 homes in Virginia were without electricity, and tens of thousands of homes were in the neighboring state of Maryland, according to the special site Power Outage.