Millions without power as winter weather blasts the US

Millions without power as winter weather blasts the US

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City workers use shovels to chip away at ice on the sidewalk in downtown Louisville on February 11, 2021 in Louisville, Kentucky.
City workers use shovels to chip away at ice on the sidewalk in downtown Louisville on February 11, 2021 in Louisville, Kentucky. Jon Cherry/Getty Images

“What we’re facing is three winter storms in seven days,” Jim Gray, secretary of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet said during a Monday morning news conference.

Kentucky is currently experiencing it’s second storm of three.

“We had what amounted to an intermission, actually, between the winter storms this weekend,” Gray said. “That enabled our highway crews to get a bit of rest and make some headway in clearing fallen limbs and trees, for example, and restocking our salt supplies.” 

But Gray said that was just a short break. Later today, snowfall is anticipated to drop faster than road crews will be able to clear it.

Gov. Andy Beshear pleaded with residents to stay off the roads and to be aware of the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning, “those are casualties we don’t want to see. We did not make it through almost a year of a pandemic to lose people to a snow or an ice storm.”

Beshear said “The National Guard has been alerted and our soldiers are standing by with equipment ready to assist if necessary. In fact, we just had to stand up our first unit in Ashland, which is going to be going door to door to check on those that are more remote and have lost power and will be transporting people to warming stations, if necessary.”

Highway crews have been out “working under these difficult conditions,” Gray said, adding, “We have good equipment. We have great people. We have some 2,000 front line employees committed to this work today. More than 1,000 pieces of equipment, supplemented by 400 contract plow operators, but we still, despite this, we need everyone’s help.” 

“We asked you to do your part,” Gray said. “The main thing you can do as a citizen is to stay off the roadways if you don’t have to be on them.”

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