A snow and ice storm blasted parts of the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region and the South early Tuesday, creating treacherous road conditions and leaving hundreds of thousands without power. The federal government in Washington closed its offices for nonemergency personnel. Some Washington areas saw 2 to 6 inches (5 to 15 centimeters) of snow, and the storm was the worst of the season, said Andy Woodcock, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. The federal office closures -the first of the winter- were expected to keep tens of thousands of commuters off the roads and rails Tuesday morning and afternoon, AP reported. Officials urged people to stay off the roads in several states, hoping to avoid a repeat of a disastrous February 2014 storm, when rush-hour traffic and a thin coating of ice left people stuck in cars or abandoning vehicles in the southern cities of Atlanta and Raleigh. Schools and offices closed for the day, outages hit especially hard in the Carolinas and Georgia, and hundreds of flights were canceled.
