During a press conference on Wednesday, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna issued a mysterious evacuation order, urging residents to be prepared to leave their homes and expect to be away for an extended period of time. Sheriff Luna emphasized the uncertainty of the situation, stating that evacuees might be gone for several days, depending on various factors such as weather conditions and subsequent events affecting specific neighborhoods.
Of particular concern in this evacuation are the unhoused individuals in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. Authorities have been working to warn and assist those living in high-risk areas to relocate to safer locations. Sheriff Luna highlighted the dangers posed by swift-water rescues in the past and emphasized the importance of preventing similar incidents.
In other regions, heavy snowfall is anticipated to impact Western states on Thursday and Friday, with the heaviest snowfall expected in the Sierra Nevada region, where up to 8 feet of snow is forecasted. Hazardous travel conditions are expected in mountainous areas of western Colorado and Utah. Additionally, freezing rain poses a threat in the Pacific Northwest, with ice accumulation expected on Thursday.
The Arctic weather system responsible for the wintry conditions in the central and southern Plains is forecasted to move eastward towards the Atlantic by Saturday. Temperatures remain significantly below seasonal averages in parts of the Mississippi Valley and Plains, with an extreme cold warning in effect for North Dakota.
As the cold snap persists across the East Coast and mid-Atlantic regions, nearly 200,000 energy customers were without power on Thursday morning, according to PowerOutage.us. Heavy snowfall is set to continue across New England, the Great Lakes, and the Ohio Valley, before shifting towards the central Appalachians, posing risks of hazardous travel conditions, tree damage, and potential power outages.
