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President Donald Trump has approved emergency declarations for another 10 states as a powerful winter storm continues to impact much of the country. The latest approvals bring the total number of states with emergency declarations signed by the president to 12.
Those states are Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, West Virginia, Virginia, and South Carolina.
“I have just approved Emergency Declarations for Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, and West Virginia,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “We are working closely with FEMA, Governors, and State Emergency Management teams to ensure the safety of everybody. Stay Safe, and Stay Warm!”
The president issued the statement hours before the winter storm intensified and blanketed large portions of the nation with snow, ice, and freezing rain.
Earlier Saturday, Trump approved emergency declarations for South Carolina and Virginia as the storm expanded eastward.
Emergency declarations temporarily remove certain spending restrictions, allowing state governments to move faster in supplying resources and requesting federal assistance through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.
At least 20 states have now declared their own states of emergency in response to the storm.
Those states include Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
In Louisiana, where ice and freezing temperatures arrived earlier in the day, roughly 50,000 customers reported power outages Saturday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us.
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Forecasters warned conditions were expected to worsen later Saturday and into Sunday as the storm moved farther east, CNN reported.
Thousands of residents in Northeast Texas also lost power as freezing rain and ice accumulated across the region.
More than 7,000 homes and businesses in the Dallas–Fort Worth area were without electricity Saturday afternoon, according to PowerOutage.us.
Oncor, the Dallas-based electric utility, said crews were working rapidly to restore service but warned that additional outages were likely.
“New outage events are likely as freezing rain and ice accumulation is expected to increase,” the company said in a statement.
Oncor also noted that ice buildup poses the greatest risk to electric service and that fluctuating temperatures can cause repeated thawing and refreezing, which increases the likelihood of downed lines and equipment failures.
Farther east, tens of thousands of customers in counties near the Louisiana and Oklahoma borders remained without power late Saturday afternoon.
More than 30 percent of customers in Shelby County and nearly 40 percent in Panola County were affected, according to outage data.
Deep East Texas Electric Cooperative said it had dispatched utility workers to repair damaged lines and restore service as conditions allow.
In New Jersey, transportation officials announced major service disruptions ahead of the storm’s arrival.
New Jersey’s commuter rail system will stop running at 2 p.m. Sunday, while all bus and light rail services will be suspended for the entire day, Gov. Mikie Sherrill said Saturday afternoon.
“You need to be on a train getting to where you need to go by 2, because then things are shutting down,” Sherrill said at a news conference.
State officials said they will determine when to resume service after evaluating road and track conditions on Sunday.
New Jersey will also impose a 35-mile-per-hour speed limit on all major highways and interstates beginning Sunday, according to the state Department of Transportation.
Officials across the affected regions continue to urge residents to limit travel, prepare for extended power outages, and monitor local emergency guidance as the storm progresses.
