On Wednesday, the Nation caught up with at least a dozen Kenyans who were stranded at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport.
A rare winter storm has gripped the
Southern part of the United States killing at least five people,
stranding children overnight at their schools and shutting down airports
and entire cities.
Winter Storm Leon caught many
Kenyans in the Metro Atlanta area by surprise when it roared into the
deep South Tuesday afternoon causing massive traffic jams and the
cancellation of over 3,000 flights.
On Wednesday, the Nation
caught up with at least a dozen Kenyans who were stranded at Hartsfield
Jackson International Airport. “My family and I were travelling to
Kenya via Amsterdam but no plane was departing from this airport. We
were forced to spend the night here,” said Lilian Ogeti who was
accompanied by her husband and three children.
But
Atlanta Mayor, Kasim Reed sought to assure the families that the
situation would improve in the next two days. “Thousands are stranded at
the airport and we are doing our best to resume normal services,” he
told a media briefing in Atlanta Wednesday morning.
Spent the night in their cars
Many
Kenyans spent the night in their cars Tuesday night after they were
caught up in the traffic snarl up witnessed on all the major roads in
the State of Georgia.
“Thousands of us got stuck on the
road in this frigid weather because motor vehicles stopped moving at
around 11 PM last night,” said Peter Kuria, a resident of the city of
Marietta in Georgia.
On Tuesday, businesses and schools
closed early, sending hundreds of thousands of people onto the snowy
roads at the same time. The roads were crowded, commute times jumped,
and people who ran out of fuel on the road were forced to ditch their
cars and walk.
“It is the worst storm I have
experienced for the ten years I have lived here,” said Edith Muriithi
who spent six hours driving home from work – a distance of three
Kilometres.
Authorities rescued about 50 schoolchildren
in Atlanta, whose buses were stranded overnight on an icy roadway,
district officials said.
Hundreds of other students
remained sheltered in schools and other locations, their parents unable
to reach them after being stuck in an epic traffic snarl that has
continued for more than 24 hours.
Most Kenyans who
spent the night in the cold weather used the social media to update
family and friends of the situation they were in. “I’m spending the
night at a friend’s house, it’s safer that way,” wrote Esther Wairimu
Seaman on her Facebook wall.
Five deaths in Alabama were blamed on the icy storm that slammed the region from Texas through Georgia and the Carolinas.
Some
school districts in Alabama and Georgia thought the roads were too
dangerous for buses, and had no choice but to keep kids overnight.
Officials
from Georgia Metrological department said Wednesday that the situation
would not change until Thursday afternoon. “The headaches will continue
all over the Southeast on Wednesday,” said a statement released by the
Georgia governor’s office
.
Forecasters predicted little
relief from the ice and snow on Wednesday, with temperatures unlikely
to rise much above freezing for long enough to thaw roads and bridges,
before freezing again early Thursday across the Southeast.
In
Virginia, up to 10 inches of snow fell overnight in some parts of the
state, said meteorologists at Accuweather.com. Two inches of sleet
pelted North Carolina by Wednesday morning.
In
Birmingham, Alabama, about 800 students remained stranded in their
schools early Wednesday, City Mayor William Bell said that teachers
stayed with them, giving them food and water.
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