Winter storm forecast for the Southeast

With snow and freezing weather forecast to hit much of the Southeast on Tuesday, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has declared a state of emergency for nearly a third of his state, where residents worry about government preparedness after a light winter storm in late January shut down the Atlanta area.

"I'm not counting on it. I've been in Georgia on and off for 20 years. It's usually the same scenario, not enough preparations and not enough equipment," said Terri Herod, who bought a large bag of sand and a shovel at a Home Depot on Monday. 

Memories of the Jan. 28 storm were fresh for some. Students were trapped on buses or at schools and thousands of cars were abandoned along highways as short commutes turned into odysseys. One woman gave birth on a jammed interstate. In the chaos, though, there were stories of Southern hospitality — people opening up homes and businesses to help the stranded. Officials reported one accident-related death.

Tuesday’s storm is expected to blanket much of the Southeast with snow, sleet and freezing rain. More than 900 flights have already been cancelled at three of the region's major airports in Charlotte, N.C., Dallas, Texas, and Atlanta, Ga.

Al Jazeera America meteorologist Rebecca Stevenson called the coming storm "a major winter event" that began on Monday night and will continue through Thursday. She forecast up to two inches of snow for the Atlanta area on Tuesday morning, followed by colder air "that will set the stage for a potentially significant ice storm Wednesday and Thursday." 

To assist state authorities in responding to the storm, President Barack Obama signed an emergency declaration for Georgia on Tuesday. According to a White House statement, the move “orders federal aid to supplement state and local response efforts.”

Other parts of the South were expected to get hit by the storm as well. In Louisiana, where big storms are often hurricanes, Gov. Bobby Jindal on Monday declared a state of emergency for severe winter weather in the northern part of the state, according to the Times-Picayune newspaper. Alabama, which saw stranded vehicles and had 10,000 students spend the night in schools during the January storm, was likely to get a wintry mix of precipitation. Parts of Mississippi could see 3 inches of snow, and a blast of snow over a wide section of Kentucky slickened roads and closed several school districts. South Carolina, which hasn't seen a major ice storm in nearly a decade, could get a quarter to three-quarters of an inch of ice.

Atlanta has a long and painful history of being ill-equipped to deal with snowy weather and people were not taking any chances, even though officials promised the response would be different this time.

 "We're not looking back, we're looking forward," Deal said. "The next three days are going to be challenging. We want to make sure we are as prepared as possible."

Aaron Strickland, emergency operations director for Georgia Power, said the utility was bringing in crews from Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and Michigan.

"Ice is probably one of the worst events we face," Strickland said. "When you look at the types of ice we are talking about, it's catastrophic."

Schools announced early that they would close Tuesday, and tractor-trailer drivers were handed fliers about the weather and a law requiring chains on tires. City and state government were to stay open Tuesday, but the governor called for a liberal-leave policy, meaning if workers didn't want to come in they didn't have to. More than 500 Delta flights with Atlanta connections on Tuesday had been canceled, and passengers traveling through several Southeastern states between Tuesday and Thursday were offered a chance to make free one-time changes to their itineraries.

People around Atlanta planned to stay off the roads, which couldn't be treated last time because there were too many cars stuck on them.

"Basically, everyone from the office is going to be working from home" on Tuesday, Dakota Herrera said as he left a downtown car park on his way to the office Monday.

Deal was doing many things differently. He opened an emergency operations center and held two news conferences before the storm. When the Jan. 28 storm hit, Deal was at an awards luncheon with Mayor Kasim Reed, who was named a magazine's 2014 "Georgian of the Year."

During the last storm, Deal and Reed didn't hold their first news conference until hours after highways were jammed.

Much is at stake for the governor, a Republican who is up for re-election, and Reed, who is seen as a rising star in the Democratic Party and has aspirations for higher office. Both took heat from residents, forecasters and even comedians during the last storm.

The governor apologized and announced the formation of a task force to study the problems. He also called for various reviews and wants a new public alert system for severe weather, similar to what's used for missing and endangered children.

The Associated Press and Al Jazeera