Major Snow Storm Cancels Flights on East Coast
BANFIELD: It is our breaking news on CNN this hour and throughout the weekend as well, this massive winter storm. The heavy snow fall, the ice, the wind and of course, all of the drifting snow. The whole thing is bearing down on the Eastern Seaboard and we are on the edge of it, New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., the Carolinas. About 30 million people right now, 30 million Americans living under a blizzard watch, a blizzard warning or some other kind of weather warning. CNN Meteorologist Jennifer Gray is live in Washington, D.C., right now on the mall. It is looking kind of nice behind you, but I know this it is the calm before the storm. There are a lot of people are getting off work right now, and heading home. So, just sort of walk me through where you are. You are in a state of emergency, and it doesn't look it, but you are.</s>JENNIFER GRAY, AMS, METEOROLOGIST: Yeah. You would never know it, Ashleigh. Look behind me. There are thousands and thousands of people behind me at the national mall. And, these aren't people trying to go home, these are people walking around, they are protesting, it looks like any other normal Friday. It is unbelievable. People are urged to get home by 3:00 p.m. We are in that state of emergency and the snow is coming. That leading edge is inching towards the D.C. area. And once it starts conditions are going to deteriorate in the snap of a finger. And so hopefully this people will be making their way home soon but you would never know that a storm is coming just by looking at behind me. Let's get to this graphics, you can see that snow line is getting very very, very close to the D.C. area, filling in little by little, like you said, 29 million people under the blizzard warning, and that stretches from D.C., Baltimore, Philly, New York, Philadelphia could see more snow than originally expected. We could see up to 20 to 30 inches here in the D.C. area, and it is going to continue to snow for hours and hours on end. We are looking at the 24 to 36 hours. The winds are going to pick up. We're going to see winds at a 30 to 40 miles per hour with the gusts up to the 60 or higher as the storm makes its way up the coast. We will continue the feel the winds through tomorrow, and then finally starting to slack off by Saturday night. Look at that, D.C. definitely in the bull's eye. The nation's capital getting the very, very strong winds, and then it is going to continue up, Ashleigh, the East Coast, we're also going to get the possibility of the major coastal flooding and beach erosion up and down the coastline, Ashleigh.</s>BANFIELD: OK Jen, I have to scoot, but not before I ask you once again to ask your cameraman to pan back over to all those tourist, because they have two hours and change, until they need to be on their way. Are the capitol police telling them that there is a massive dangerous storm on the way?</s>GRAY: Well, there are a couple of police officers right where the roads are barricaded, but as far as we can tell, they are letting the people through, and I don't know if you can see as far as we can see the sea of people, thousands and thousands of them. It is a really unsettling, the metro is supposed to stay open until 11:00, but once it starts, it is going to deteriorate quickly. There is a lot of traffic on the road, but we saw what happened the other day, which is a tiny, tiny bit of snow and we need just really to see people to get home quickly.</s>BANFIELD: That's just unbelievable. Well, I sure hope they have plans, because driving is going to be very difficult. Jennifer Gray, thank you update, surprising update. I want to take a couple of live pictures of if I can right now. Nashville, Tennessee, yeah Nashville, this is not what you are used to seeing there, traffic just inching along on that ice. They are not used to snow and ice on the roads on a regular basis, there, also I want to show you some live pictures from further east. These are from Roanoke, Virginia, and our affiliate WDBJ7, snow coming down there, traffic seem to be moving along. Not a lot of cars out on the road, that's a good thing, the governor of Virginia saying that he is especially concerned about the northern part of his state, at Washington D.C., area. He has also activated upwards of about 500 members of the Virginia national guard to fan out and help people who are in need, especially in the rural areas. On the phone with me, Cotton Puryear is a spokesman for the Virginia State National Guard. Thank you for joining me, Cotton. Give me the state of the union on the job right now, because I can only imagine, you have got hundreds of people coming into active duty, they're going need a lot of assignments, and their job is going to be real tough.</s>COTTON PURYEAR, VIRGINIA NATIONAL GUARD PUBLIC HEALTH OFFICER: Well, thanks for the opportunity for us to talk about what the guard is doing. We really appreciate the governor getting us that declaration to get the personnel in place before the bad weather hits, because that is really key to us being able to provide a rapid response if we need to get the folks in place safely. And we are currently staged at key e locations across the commonwealth. We've got soldiers with vehicles that are capable of moving through large amounts of snow. So we are standing by and ready to assist.</s>BANFIELD: May I ask you about the readiness stations that I've been reading about. You've got the stations set up along the freeways and particularly I-81, what exactly is the readiness station?</s>PURYEAR: Right, well, these are the -- the readiness centers -- that's the new term centers. That's the term that we've used for our armories though it's the places where the soldiers to go and conduct the drill. That's where their vehicles are stationed. And there -- we just happen to have them in all the right places along the I-81 corridor to be able move to where they need to go. So, they're in their armories and in most cases. But now we're also starting to move forward to link up with Virginia state police, and co-located their facilities along with the Virginia Department of Transportation, and we have a few localities that have requested guard support. So we're co-locating with them. So have a combination of strategies that again allows us to be able to get our personnel and equipment in the right place so that they are able to respond.</s>BANFIELD: At a time when the rest of us just thinking about hunkering down with Netflix all weekend long, you and your colleague, about what, up to 3,000 to 3,500 of you are gearing up and doing the dangerous work. Do you have all of the gear and everything that you need to do to do what's coming?</s>PURYEAR: Yes, we are very fortunate, you know, the guard is a dual status force so we have the federal state mission, so we have the federal equipment, we've got the latest the Humves we've got medium truckload (ph)tracks, our soldiers have the cold weather gear. So they've got the equipment that they need to then be able to turn around and be of assistance to the citizens in the commonwealth. And we are also fortunate when you are talking about everybody else hunkering down, we're fortunate that the employers, because all of the guardsmen do something else before they are guardsmen. So our employers have let all of the employees go, and we got the families back home. I know my wife is not happy about all of the snow she has the shovel while we are out here doing this, but it is what our soldiers signed up to do, and we really look forward to the opportunity to be able to assist the citizens of the commonwealth when they need us.</s>BANFIELD: Well, let me thank you in advance, because I know also your families that are going to be left on their own, and that's really tough for all of you and your colleagues. So thanks you work, thank you for your service, and thanks for doing the interview, Cotton. Good luck.</s>PURYEAR: Thanks very much. We appreciate the opportunity to tell you about the great things the guards are doing.</s>BANFIELD: Well, we'll check in with you throughout the course of the storm. Cotton Puryear joining us live. National guardsmen, tough workers folks, thank them if you get the chance. Mayor of Washington D.C said the storm has life and death implication. Coming up in the next hour, the mayor of New York expected to speak live about the preparations in this city. We're going to bring you those updates as we get them live.