There was just a few inches of snow in Atlanta on Friday and Saturday, but with worsening conditions on the roads, the NBA decided to postpone the hometown Hawks’ game with the visiting Houston Rockets.
The NBA said the decision was made ‘to prioritize the safety of the players, fans and staff due to the severe weather and hazardous icy conditions in the Atlanta area.’
The league said a date for a rescheduled game will be announced at a later time. The Rockets’ team flight arrived in Atlanta before the postponement was announced.
A winter storm dumped snow and ice on the Atlanta area Friday and roads were expected to refreeze Saturday night.
Power outage numbers around Atlanta crept up Friday night as falling trees on power lines became a widespread issue. More than 110,000 customers were without electricity, mostly in the Atlanta area.
On Friday, four passengers were injured after a Delta Air Lines jet bound for Minneapolis aborted its takeoff. Delta spokesperson Morgan Durrant said the plane experienced an engine problem.
Atlanta residents head to Piedmont Park to walk around and go sledding on Friday
Snow covers parts of Atlanta following a storm on Friday, as streets were largely abandoned
While the issue happened during the snowstorm that caused widespread cancellations and delays in Atlanta — the world’s busiest airport — officials couldn’t say if the problem was related to the weather.
The 201 passengers, two pilots and five flight attendants aboard evacuated the Boeing 757-300 using inflatable slides and were bused back to a concourse. One of the injured passengers was taken to a hospital, while three were treated at the airport for minor injuries.
The storm was moving out to sea off the East Coast on Saturday, leaving behind a forecast for snow showers in the Appalachian Mountains and New England. But temperatures were expected to plunge after sundown in the South, raising the risk that melting snow will refreeze, turning roadways treacherously glazed with ice.
‘I definitely don’t think everything’s going to completely melt,’ said Scott Carroll, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Atlanta. ‘Especially the secondary roads will probably still have some slush on them.’
Major airports including those in Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina, continued to report disruptions. While flights were operating, airlines canceled and delayed more flights after Friday’s weather slowed travel to a crawl.
A man uses a snow blower following a snowstorm on Friday in Atlanta
By Saturday afternoon about 1,000 flights in and out of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport were canceled or delayed, according to tracking software FlightAware. Security lines in the terminal were also extremely long.
Sarah Waithera Wanyoike, who lives in the Atlanta suburb of Lilburn, arrived at the world’s busiest airport before sunrise Friday to catch an Ethiopian Airlines flight to her job in Zimbabwe.
The plane boarded after a delay but never left, discharging passengers back to the gate after taxiing around for six hours. Wanyoike said her luggage remained on the plane and she dared not try to go home because she was told to be back at the gate before dawn.
‘People slept with their babies on the floors last night,’ Wanyoike said Saturday.
Delta Air Lines, the largest carrier at the airport, said Saturday that it was ‘working to stabilize’ operations at its Atlanta hub and anticipated ‘resumption of reliable service this weekend.’
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .