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State of emergency declared in U.S. east coast due to snowstorm threats

Xinhua, January 22, 2016 Adjust font size:

Washington, D.C and another five U.S. states along the U.S. East Coast on Thursday declared state of emergency as the region was bracing itself for a historic snowstorm over the weekend that was expected to dump up to 2 feet of snow.

As authorities in Washington, D.C., and the states of Tennessee, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania declared the state of emergency on Thursday, blizzard watches were also issued by the National Weather Service along the storm's path, stretching from Arkansas through Tennessee and Kentucky to the mid-Atlantic states.

According to the weather service, extreme conditions, including high winds and a storm surge, are expected to begin Friday afternoon through Saturday night.

"It (snowfall) does have the potential to be an extremely dangerous storm that can affect more than 50 million people," weather service director Louis Uccellini told reporters on Thursday.

While the storm was expected to easily paralyze the eastern third of the country, the U.S. capital city of Washington, D.C. was very likely to bear the brunt. According to weather predictions, more than two feet of snow was expected for Washington.

To prepare for the potentially crippling winter storm, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority on Thursday announced that it would shut down the city's Metro system from Friday night through Sunday.

Local grocery store shelves were emptied as people in the storm's path scrambled to get essentials and prepared to hunker down for a wintry weekend.

Meanwhile, major airlines began to cancel flights for Friday and Saturday. According to FlightAware, a flight tracking site, at least 2,000 flights on Friday and another 3,000 on Saturday were expected to be canceled. Endi