ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
It's been many years since parts of the Gulf Coast have seen what's falling from the sky today - snow. Ice and sleet hit areas stretching from Houston, across New Orleans, all the way to Florida. More than 30 million people are under a winter storm warning. NPR's Debbie Elliott is in the middle of it and joins us from her home in Orange Beach, Alabama. Hi, Debbie.
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: You got snow at the beach down there?
ELLIOTT: We do. It's just insane. It's coming down very hard. We've had about 3" in our little rain gauge that we keep on the back deck. And the weight of the snow is so heavy that it's starting to pull down the palm fronds in the front yard. It's bitterly cold. Winds are gusting about 15 miles an hour. So at times, the snow is actually blowing sideways, kind of like the rain does when we get hurricanes. It is surreal. I cannot remember any meaningful snowfall here in the 30-plus years that I've lived here. It's beautiful to look out the window and see it, but otherwise, we should let people know that this storm is really disrupting the Gulf Coast.
SHAPIRO: Tell us about those disruptions. What's happening?
ELLIOTT: You know, obviously, travel and traffic accidents with the ice and snow piling up in places that rarely see it. So people aren't necessarily equipped to drive in it, and communities aren't really ready for it. These little beach towns along the Gulf Coast don't have snowplows or stockpiles of road salt to go. So the message has been people should just consider all roads and bridges impassable.
In Louisiana, the state has closed those big bridges that cross Lake Pontchartrain and the Mississippi River. The state's also closed large chunks of Interstate 10. So travel is just not really easy around here. All of the Gulf state governors have declared states of emergency and want people to stay put, to shelter in place and to be prepared for potential power and water outages in this extremely cold weather. A lot of businesses are closed, so are schools and colleges. And then, of course, airports are shut down, with thousands of flights canceled or delayed.
SHAPIRO: Forecasters are calling this a once-in-a-generation storm that could make history. Are people going to be telling their grandkids about this?
ELLIOTT: I think so, you know? And it already has made history, according to Stacey Denson. She's a meteorologist I spoke with earlier today. She's at the National Weather Service in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
STACEY DENSON: This morning, we did issue our first ever blizzard warning here - first ever one that's ever been issued in all Louisiana - because we were seeing basically whiteout conditions.
ELLIOTT: So a whiteout in Louisiana and...
SHAPIRO: Wow.
ELLIOTT: ...The first ever blizzard warning. You know, these are forecasters who are more accustomed to dealing with hurricanes coming up in the Gulf of Mexico...
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
ELLIOTT: ...Not the Gulf serving up this frigid moisture. Forecasters say this storm is producing historic snowfall amounts. Some places in Louisiana have already gotten more than 9".
SHAPIRO: Well, I hope people are at least taking the opportunity to have some fun with it.
ELLIOTT: Oh, absolutely. There was a picture I saw earlier of two people skiing down Bourbon Street in New Orleans.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
ELLIOTT: There are jokes about, you know, making snow angels on the white sand beaches that are now covered with an even fluffier layer of white. Our colleague, Audrey McGlinchy, at Member Station KUT in Austin, Texas, was out talking with people in the snow today. She sent this from Ana Connolly, who was so excited to see the snow first thing that she was still wearing her slippers.
ANA CONNOLLY: It's like a present. I feel like we never really get snow here that actually sticks. And so waking up and being like, I have to get out of the house right now, and then everyone acts like it's summer camp. Everyone's running around and being like, do you see this snow? It's just cute.
ELLIOTT: So cute, but also windchill's going to be dangerously low tonight - another reason officials, again, asking people to just stay put.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Debbie Elliott from the winter wonderland of Orange Beach, Alabama. Enjoy your hot cocoa or bourbon or whatever you got.
ELLIOTT: Mm-hmm. Thanks, Ari. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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