A townhouse burned this morning in Stafford County.
Multiple occupants from adjacent townhomes are displaced. Five occupants who lived inside the house that burned were not home when flames broke out and were found safe.
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The county’s secondary thoroughfares and sidestreets snarled due to a continued closure of Interstate 95 that left thousands of drivers stranded overnight. The declaration will trigger much-needed help from the state’s emergency management.
Since the storm’s onset early Monday, January 3, law enforcement and fire and rescue crews have been working 14-hour shifts on county streets. While answering calls for help, some became trapped in their vehicles due to fallen trees, ice, and snow.
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Just after 8 a.m. Monday, January 3, just as a massive snowstorm ramped up, state police troopers began receiving calls for help on the highway near Fredericksburg. Tractor-trailers crashed, stranding thousands of drivers for most of the day.
At 4 a.m. today, the Virginia Department of Transportation closed a 53-mile stretch of the highway between Dumfries and Ruther Glen, near Kings Dominion. The agency gave the order to remove stranded cars on the road, adding it is impossible to know how many drivers or cars became stranded on the highway.
According to Prince William County spokesman Matt Smolksy, emergency crews deliver MREs (meals ready to eat) to stranded drivers on I-95. A 53-mile stretch of the highway between Dumfries and Carmel Chruch, near Kings Dominion, closed about 5 a.m.
About 30 tractor-trailers became stranded near milepost 110 at Thornburg. At milepost 136 near the Stafford regional airport, more tractor-trailers became stranded.
Trained spotters for the National Weather Service said 14 and a half inches of snow fell in the Holly Corner area of southern Stafford County, just off Route 17. According to another trained spotter, in the western portion of the county near Lake Arrowhead, more than 11 inches of snow fell.
According to National Weather Service spotters, in Prince William County, the highest totals are in Dumfries and Dale City, as each area saw 12 inches of snow.
The hardest-hit Stafford County, where a foot or more snow fell Monday, sees the bulk of power outages. As of 5 a.m. Tuesday, January 4, Dominion Energy reports 34,444 of its 53,300 customers — about 60 percent — are without power.
NOVEC reports 2,717 of its customers without power, just a little under half of the number of customers the utility serves in the county.
Icy conditions on the highway led to multiple stranded tractor-trailers overnight. According to the Virginia Department of Transportation, drivers should avoid the thoroughfare while tow truck works to remove the broken down vehicles and snow plows work to clear the highway.
Late last night, highway again shut down a portion of I-95 in hard-hit Stafford County, where more than a foot of snow fell Monday. Multiple trucks became stranded at milepost 136, near the county’s airport.
Government closings and delays: Are you military, or do you work for local or state government? See our complete local closings and delays list. [Twitter]
Waiting game: Dominion expects Northern Virginia power restoration to be ‘multi-day effort’ [Insidenova.com]