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Snowstorm cancels more than 6K flights

Posted at 3:22 PM, Jan 22, 2016
and last updated 2016-01-22 15:22:05-05
 
Airlines canceled more than 6,000 flights to, from or within the U.S. for Friday and Saturday, as a blizzard began covering much of the Eastern U.S.
 
The bulk of Friday's 2,900 cancelations are in Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina, according to flight tracking service FlightAware. Another 3,300 flights were canceled for Saturday. Those cancelations center on Philadelphia, Washington, and New York, with airlines essentially shutting down all flights into those cities.
 
By Sunday afternoon, however, the airlines hope to be back to a full schedule to handle the typical influx of business travelers heading out to start a week on the road.
 
One bit of good news: Saturday is the slowest travel day of the week.
 
 
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1:40 p.m.
 
Republican Gov. Chris Christie is returning to New Jersey from the presidential campaign trail and is preparing to meet with his cabinet and brief the press.
 
Christie had been scheduled to remain in New Hampshire through the weekend, when the bulk of the storm was expected to dump up to 18 inches of snow on parts of New Jersey.
 
Christie will hold a storm briefing with his Cabinet members Friday night and then will speak with the media from the Newark Department of Transportation garage.
 
Christie said Friday he was canceling campaign events Friday and Saturday because of the weather, but New Jersey's first lady Mary Pat would stay in New Hampshire.
 
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1 p.m.
 
A Tennessee Highway Patrolman says interstates are "pure gridlock" around downtown Nashville and "just totally shut down."
 
Lt. Bill Miller says snow plows and salt trucks are out, but they can't keep up with the winter weather.
 
Josh Booker is a cook at a Nashville Waffle House restaurant. He says the restaurant is putting employees up at a nearby hotel in order to keep the Waffle House open 24 hours a day.
 
Booker says the restaurant should have put them up overnight on Thursday because he barely made it in to work on Friday morning with his fiancee, who also works at the Waffle House, and two children.
 
He says they took it slow on the snow-covered roads but got stuck at the intersection just in front of the restaurant. Several people came out and pushed the car into the parking lot.
 

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