American, United And Delta Airlines Cancel All New York And New Jersy Flights To Territory As East Coast Braces For Blizzard

ST. CROIX — All Delta and American Airlines flights scheduled to arrive in the territory today have been canceled, an alert issued by the Virgin Islands Port Authority has confirmed.

The alert also revealed that Delta Airlines flights from Atlanta were still on schedule as of late Friday, and updates will be made if plans change, according to VIPA.

The cancellations are a result of a massive winter storm that threatens to dump two feet of snow on Washington, DC. It began pummeling the East Coast on Friday afternoon, as millions of people from the Carolinas to New York braced for a weekend of severe winds, power losses and coastal flooding.

On the mainland, thousands of flights were canceled; governors and mayors warned people to stay indoors and off the roads, according to the New York Times.

The Times report says governors in at least 10 states declared states of emergency, and travel was disrupted in at least five major airport hubs, with 6,300 flights canceled on Friday and Saturday and 4,675 more delayed. In North Carolina, more than 114,000 homes lost power. The Washington region’s mass transit system took what an official called an “exceedingly rare” step of shutting down for the weekend.

Cities from Nashville to New York started emergency operations to respond to what the National Weather Service deemed a “potentially crippling winter storm.” In Virginia, where snow began falling Friday morning in the southern part of the state, Gov. Terry McAuliffe put 700 National Guard members on standby; by Friday evening, hundreds of accidents had been reported. In Baltimore, shelters added hundreds of extra beds to accommodate the homeless.