Going to be a disaster

So far, more than 7,000 flights originally scheduled for Friday and Saturday wit
hin, into or out of the United States have been canceled, according to the fligh
t monitor flightaware.com.
In Washington, officials took the unusual step ahead of the storm of closing dow
n the city s rail and bus system from Friday night until Monday morning.
The Metro system -- the second busiest in the United States after New York -- se
rves about 700,000 customers a day in Washington, Maryland and Virginia.
Grocery store shelves were bare -- with toilet paper, milk, bread and alcohol co
nspicuously missing -- as residents anticipated impassable roads and power outag
es.
"I think it s going to be a disaster," Sharonda Brown, a nurse, said as she wait
ed for an Uber car with a full cart of groceries at a Washington supermarket.
If the blizzard leaves as much snow in Washington as forecast, it could surpass
a record set in 1922 by a storm that dumped 28 inches over three days and killed
100 people after a roof collapsed at a theater.
US Capitol Police have said they were lifting a decades-old sledding ban, but th
e national monuments, Capitol building and Smithsonian museums were all closed.
Even a massive snowball fight in Washington s Dupont Circle neighborhood, which
nearly two thousand people said they would attend on Facebook, had to be postpon
ed from Saturday to Sunday due to the storm s ferocity.
(AFP)