(CNBC) – Forecasts of snow and ice as far south as Georgia have put a big part of the Southeast on an emergency preparedness footing as shoppers scoured store shelves for storm supplies and crews raced to treat highways and roads as a major winter storm approached from the Midwest.
In Virginia, where a blizzard left thousands of motorists trapped on clogged highways earlier this month, outgoing Gov. Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency and urged people to take the approaching storm seriously. In North Carolina, some store shelves were stripped bare of essentials including bread and milk.
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By Friday, the fast-moving storm had already dropped heavy snow across a large swath of the Midwest, where travel conditions deteriorated and scores of schools closed or moved to online instruction. Iowa was hit the hardest. Brad Small, a National Weather Service meteorologist said the airport in Des Moines saw more than 14 inches of snow and a big swath of the central and southern Iowa recorded between 9 inches and a foot of snow.
