Gov. Stein shares updates on NC's winter weather prep
If you're disappointed by how few snowflakes fell this past
weekend I have some good news for you
And if you're tired of winter weather some bad news
This is going to be with us a little bit
longer starting overnight and continuing through Sunday morning we expect
snowfall across most of the state
However we don't anticipate ice storms that created the risk
of widespread power outages last weekend
But still we must be prepared
The snow is going to come with strong winds and
bitterly cold temperatures
In many places
We don't expect to get above freezing until early next
week
So whatever snow falls on Saturday is going to stick
around for a while
In coastal North Carolina especially the Outer Banks strong tides
and high winds could also cause flooding
Strong winds combined with snow can create whiteout conditions making
driving treacherous
We are prepared to respond to whatever the storm may
bring
Yesterday I declared a state of emergency across North Carolina
This will help us qualify for any federal assistance we
may need
We've activated the state emergency Response Team a cross-agency group
that includes the Department of Transportation Department of Public Safety
North Carolina National Guard State Highway Patrol and our state's
utilities
NCDOT crews have been working in shifts around the clock
on de-icing operations to clear the roadways from what's left
from the past weekend's storm and anti-icing operations to prepare
for the roads for the coming weather
I had the privilege of seeing a number of these
workers yesterday at the NCDOT Westgate facility also known as
Brian Mountain to thank them in person
These folks have been working 90 100 hour weeks to
keep us safe
We all owe them and the many other public servants
putting in overtime on our behalf a debt of genuine
gratitude
Some of our local government partners are starting to open
warming centers so check your local government management agency's website
to see what options are available near you
At this time because of expected snow accumulation cold temperatures
and wind gusts our greatest concern is unsafe travel
So please take a second look at your weekend plans
Stay home and off the roads during winter weather and
if you live in coastal North Carolina be alert for
flooding that the strong winds will likely bring
Do not drive through floodwaters
For the most up to-date roadway information visit drivenC.gov and
no matter where you live make sure you're turned tuned
in to your local media the National Weather Service and
your local emergency management agency for the latest updates and
recommendations
Today is the day to get prepared
Make sure you've got non-perishable food plenty of water and
batteries and other supplies in case you get stuck at
home or lose power
And please check on your neighbors who may be vulnerable
Let's stick together keep each other safe and hope for
a fun snow day here in North Carolina something that
we don't get all that often
Thank you and I'm now gonna bring forward Director Ray
and then Secretary Johnson
Thank you Governor
Good morning everyone
A significant weather storm is forecast to begin this afternoon
across the mountains expanding east throughout the evening and overnight
periods
Widespread snowfall is forecast with this event and locally significant
snowfall amounts are expected
In addition to snowfall dangerously cold temperatures and strong wind
gusts are forecast through the weekend
These strong wind gusts will bring below zero wind chills
across the state and the possibility of coastal flooding
Cold temperatures will linger into early next week prolonging snowfall
impacts
A winter storm warning will go into effect statewide late
this afternoon across the mountains and Piedmont and overnight Friday
into Saturday across the coastal plain
Widespread snowfall amounts between 3 to 8 inches are forecast
across the state especially across the coastal plain where the
greatest snowfall amounts are most likely
Significant snowfall amounts of 8 to 12 inches are likely
across portions of the state but are dependent on where
the heaviest snowfall bands develop
A cold weather advisory will go into effect overnight Friday
through overnight Saturday across the eastern half of the state
where near zero wind chills are forecast
An extreme cold watch will go into effect for portions
of the mountains from Saturday afternoon until Sunday afternoon in
the Piedmont from Saturday evening through Sunday morning and in
the coastal plain from late Saturday night through Monday morning
Wind chills are forecast to be as low as 22
degrees below zero across the mountains 5 to 10 degrees
below zero for the Piedmont and 5 degrees below zero
for the coastal plain
A high wind warning and wind advisory will be in
effect Saturday afternoon and evening across much of the coast
Wind gusts within the high wind warning area are forecast
to be up to 55 to 70 MPH and wind
gusts within the wind advisory area are forecast to be
up to 45 MPH
All North Carolinians should be finalizing plans now and should
be prepared to stay home and off the roadways starting
tonight through early next week
If you need information to assist in your preparation please
visit readyNC.gov
The state emergency response team including all interagency partners private
sector nonprofit and volunteer agencies remain activated
There are 4 local states of emergencies and 21 local
emergency operations centers activated or in monitoring status
We continue to support commodity distribution and as of this
morning the state emergency response team has distributed approximately 550
blankets to assist communities with shelter and warming center operations
should they be required
This is in addition to the approximately 1700 cots and
blankets and 127 pallets of meals ready to eat or
MREs and drinking water that were shipped last weekend to
supplement local supply
Many communities across the state are opening or staging for
shelter locations or warming stations
For the most up to-date information on those resources available
in your community please visit your local government and local
emergency management agencies's website and social media accounts
The North Carolina National Guard the entirety of the North
Carolina State Highway Patrol the North Carolina Forest Service and
the Office of Emergency Medical Services among others are all
active and moving on to station today across the state
to assist local communities and state partners with clearing roadways
responding to emergencies and with transportation needs
73 North Carolina National Guard force packages will be on
station by tonight and will be assisting with clearing roadways
from downed trees helping disabled motorists supplementing first responders and
assisting with commodity distribution
These force packages include approximately 341 soldiers and 131 vehicles
While this is not forecast to be an ice event
like last weekend posing a widespread threat to our utility
partners we remain in close coordination with our energy sector
organizations who are represented here at the state emergency operations
center and we'll be closely monitoring power outage information to
quickly assist in restoring power in communities that do see
outages
Communications personnel and equipment have been pre-deployed to assist with
any degradation of 911 systems radio systems and phone systems
and as a reminder 911 should be used for emergencies
only
For general information please call 211 or follow your local
government and emergency management websites and social media accounts
Finally as I continue to say please check on your
friends your family members your neighbors or those in your
community who may need additional support this weekend
We are going to see significant winter storm impacts this
weekend and we are stronger and more resilient together
Thank you Governor and I'll now turn it over to
Secretary Johnson from NCDOT
Thank you Governor and Director Ray
NCDOT crews have been operating in overdrive since we started
preparing for last week's storm and we're not letting our
foot off the gas
Though we are still clearing areas of the state that
have experienced particularly cold temperatures and hardened ice on the
roads since last weekend's storm
Our resources uh have we've largely shifted our resources to
preparing for the ice storm approaching the snowstorm approaching this
weekend
We're closely watching the storm
The latest forecast shows that this storm will have statewide
impacts on the transportation system and carries the potential for
severe impacts on a significant portion of that system
As we did last week we're encouraging people to stay
off the roads as much as possible the next few
days
We appreciate everyone's cooperation in limiting travel over the past
week because North Carolinians heeded the warnings last weekend we
had 0 traffic fatalities related to the storm and for
that we're very grateful
By staying off the roads you help keep yourself and
your family safe and give our crews the space they
need to do their important work
Speaking of that work I want to take a moment
to recognize the thousands of DOT employees and contractors who
have put in a major effort over the last 10
days
I'm thankful for all their work and for all the
work they'll do over the next several days to help
us recover
Over the past 36 hours or so these crews have
put out an additional 1.4 million gallons of brine to
pre-treat our roads which will help keep more ice from
forming on the pavement
Once it's safe to do so our crews will be
running plows to remove snow from the roads and to
spread sand and salt to help with traction
Rest assured we'll be working hard to clear the roads
as quickly as possible
We ask for your patience as we work through the
recovery especially with more cold temperatures to come in the
days ahead
As I mentioned this storm will impact the entire state
but one area we're watching particularly closely is the Outer
Banks and other areas along the coast
As Director Ray and the governor have shared in addition
to the snow this storm brings the potential for high
winds across the state and in particular along the coast
One thing we're watching closely is the potential for overwash
particularly in the Outer Banks
This could present dangerous and potentially impassable conditions for driving
along the coast
Our crews are ready to respond and we'll restore the
roadway as quickly as possible and as we did last
week we're working with the state highway patrol to remove
disabled vehicles from the roadway
This helps keep the roads and shoulders safe for our
crews and others involved in emergency response in the days
ahead
We'll continue working with our partners the Highway Patrol and
the National Guard throughout the storm
Please stay informed and if possible stay put throughout the
duration of this storm until it's deemed safe to travel
People can visit drive andc.gov to view the latest road
conditions and other storm-related information
Thank you
I'll turn it back over to the governor for any
questions
Secretary thank you so much
Uh if there are any questions in the room please
go to the microphones on either side and then we
will go to questions online afterward
Hey Adam Wagner from WUNC um One of the concerns
with overwash obviously some of the houses on the Outer
Banks that are sort of teetering right now
I know that folks in Buxton maybe Ranthe have been
asking you for a localized state emergency for a little
while
Could this necessitate that and sort of how can how
can this weather make cleaning up those houses more difficult
if they fall in Yeah the the statewide emergency applies
to the entirety of the state including the Outer Banks
and Buxton
Unfortunately the declaration doesn't trigger any special assistance that's really
relevant to them
What it does is enable us to move resources to
help respond to emergencies
There is legislation in Congress sponsored by Congressman Murphy which
both Commissioner of Insurance Mike Causey and I have supported
and have written to Congress in that support which would
enable the flood program the
Flood Insurance Program to actually buy out homes before they
tumble into the ocean
Then it creates an environmental mess much smarter for us
to try to remove those homes that are at risk
of falling into the ocean before it does so
And then yesterday you heard from workers who spent worked
last week 99 hours 101 hours
Do you have any estimates on the total cost of
last week's storm to the state Any kind of predictions
for what this one could cost I don't have a
total cost
I don't know Will if you do
I I think it's too early at this point
Uh Clearly DOT has had experienced a great deal of
overtime
State Highway Patrol has incurred a great deal of overtime
The National Guard incurs expenses every time
Uh it gets deployed and so yes there are real
costs to the state
We have an emergency fund that the General Assembly appropriates
money into that we can draw down for these kinds
of operations but there is a cost and as it
becomes clear we're happy to share it with you
Hi Governor Christine Zu with NC Newsline
Um what preparations are being made in regards to the
power grid any potential outages Uh we are in constant
contact with our energy partners whether that's Duke Energy the
electric co-ops the uh electric cities and they're here
We know where their greatest worries are
Fortunately with this storm that is less of a concern
than last week because last week's was an ice storm
this is a snowstorm
Ice is much heavier than than snow so it's more
likely to create limb breakages or trees
Toppling over it's more likely to wait the lines and
break those
So with snow we don't think there will be as
many power outages
Unfortunately we didn't experience too many last year
I think the peak was maybe 2000 to 25,000 loss
of power at any one time
Uh so that's not to say that there will not
be power outages
If the snowfall comes in at the high end and
communities experience 15 inches of snow that's a lot of
weight and that will knock over trees and that will
knock over power lines
It's just we they call this a banded storm where
The snow is going to come in bands
It's not going to be uniform across an entire county
You may have one town in the county that has
12 to 15 inches if it's heavy and another may
have 6 or 7 or 8
And so it will be localized
I know that our utility partners are ready to go
Thank you
All right we'll take questions online
If there are any please identify yourself before you ask
a question
Raise raise your hand for me and then they'll see
you
Uh Felicia Somez please ask your question
Hi
Well thank you so much again for taking our questions
Just wondering for listeners out here in the West if
there's anything in particular that folks should be aware of
or any particular precautions that they should take ahead of
this storm
Thank you so much
Yes the the snow intensity it's going to be significant
but not as much as the Far East which is
a little bit upside down from what we're used to
Where we will see real issues in far west is
temperatures
The temperature is gonna be bitterly cold a wind chill
maybe -20 degrees
Uh obviously the risks of of frostbite and hypothermia become
very elevated when you have temperatures that low
So folks just need to not be outside if they
possibly can
And if they are outside make sure that you are
well dressed wearing lots of leathers and covering all exposed
skin
If you have to drive and there is snow make
sure that you have a safety package in the car
with you because if you run off the road in
temperatures like that it can be very dangerous
Question There are no more questions online
Very good
Thank you all very much