Georgia Power began sending crews to the mid-Atlantic on Tuesday to help restore power in areas expected to be hit with high winds and heavy snow.
A winter storm was moving eastward from the Midwest and was expected to reach the Washington D.C. area by Wednesday morning.
Airlines serving Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport also began canceling some flights to the Washington area in anticipation of the storm.
About 200 Georgia Power workers left Tuesday for a staging area in Montgomery County, Maryland, just outside Washington, the utility said. Officials in Washington and Baltimore are predicting outages.
District of Columbia officials expect 3 to 7 inches of snow. The National Weather Service says Baltimore could get 3 to 6 inches through Wednesday. The I-95 corridor could get up to 16 inches in some parts of far western Maryland.
The region’s last major snowstorm in January 2011 knocked out power to tens of thousands of people and contributed to six deaths, according to an Associated Press report.
The Georgia Power crews will typically stay one to two weeks, depending on the local needs, the utility said. Georgia Power initially will be helping PHI, the utility serving the Washington D.C. area.
Flight cancelations
Delta said flights to Baltimore,Washington, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Pa.,and Charlottesville, Va., will be affected Tuesday and Wednesday.
On Wednesday and Thursday, Delta flights to the following states could be disrupted by the winter storm in the Northeast: New York, New Jersey, Maine, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
“We suggest customers check their flight status on the Fly Delta app or at delta.com prior to leaving for the airport,” spokesman Morgan Durrant said.
If a Delta flight is canceled or significantly delayed, ticketholders are entitled to a refund. Even if the flight is not canceled, travelers may make a one-time change to tickets without a fee if was flight was through one of the mentioned cities.
As of Tuesday afternoon, Southwest had canceled nearly 200 of its 3,252 daily flights systemwide due to the winter storm and AirTran had canceled nearly 20 of its 553 flights. Travelers, however, should check the airlines’ websites for specific flight disruptions involving flights to and from Hartsfield-Jackson International Airports.
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