Blizzard: cars have been stranded for more than 24 hours

Many motorists were stranded in their cars for more than 24 hours on an 86-kilometre stretch of I-95 in the northeastern United States, before they were finally released Tuesday, after the storm caused extensive damage to trees.

“There are no more trapped people,” the Virginia Department of Transportation said in a tweet Tuesday night, estimating that “fewer than 20 vehicles still need to be removed from the highway before being chased away. of traffic lanes.

“We’ve been stuck in this place for 12 hours,” an American named Jeff told Instagram on Tuesday morning. The winter sun that replaced a storm on Monday failed to deliver trucks and cars stuck around it.

On a frigid night from Monday to Tuesday, this surfer said between two trucks that he “will be blocked in the belly of the I-95 monster” after traveling 40 kilometers in 12 hours. “It’s okay, we have some food and water,” he told his subscribers.

Virginia Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s former running mate in 2016, was also among the drivers stuck in this axis, considered one of the worst in the country under normal circumstances.

His flight, which usually takes two hours, took 27 hours. “Very happy to be back on Capitol Hill,” he wrote on Twitter upon arrival in Washington.

“We slept in our car while the temperature was extremely cold” by about -5 degrees Celsius, Father Kyle Holland said on Instagram on Tuesday, saying he was stranded “about 24 hours” on the highway with his wife and two children. .

He added that the family was finally received in the middle of the night by a resident near the nearest exit, after a 5 kilometer walk, but “we don’t know when we can leave”.

Jim Davidi, a Florida correspondent for CBS, recounted on Twitter that he was stranded for more than 20 hours and had not seen an employee on the highway or a tow truck pass for 12 hours.

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam had confirmed in a tweet that his teams had worked “all night” and were continuing their efforts to clear the highway and provide hot shelters for outcasts on the road.

The storm that hit the region on Monday dumped nearly twenty centimeters of snow, paralyzed Washington, D.C., and especially impeded President Joe Biden on his Air Force One for half an hour.

More than 200,000 homes remained without power on Tuesday, as well as tens of thousands of homes in neighboring Maryland, according to the Blackout Specialist website.