Updated on
Summary
At least five people have died as snow blankets much of the East Coast of the United States with more than a foot of snow. Air travel and public transport have been crippled in one of the worst storms the region has seen in decades. Hundreds of thousands of people have been left without power in the blizzard stretching from the Carolinas north to New England. It has also spread into some Midwestern states. The 16 inches of snow that fell at Reagan National Airport outside Washington was the most ever recorded for a single December day.Nearly two feet fell in some areas, and a blizzard warning was issued in the US capital, Washington DC. Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty asked District of Columbia residents to keep off the streets as the city faced what one TV station dubbed The Shopper Stopper Storm. A state of emergency was declared by the governors of Virginia and Maryland and the states' National Guard services were called to respond to the storm. The Virginia Department of Emergency Management said a 68-year-old woman died in a car crash in southern Virginia on Friday night.
