Weather leading up to holiday a trial for travelers
Storms across the country -- from the Pacific Northwest down to the Southern Plains and the Northeast -- have led to some headaches for Thanksgiving travelers, CBS News correspondent Cynthia Bowers reported Wednesday on "The Early Show."
Motorists in the Pacific Northwest were already swimming upstream in the days before the holiday, Bowers reported, as snow and rain jammed highways outside Seattle and dangerous winds gusted over 80 miles per hour along Highway 101 in Oregon. Heavy rain also flooded streets in Washington State -- even collapsing a roof of a public works building in Tacoma, Wash.
A strong storm system also rolled through the southern Plains Monday, exiting Arkansas Tuesday morning, leaving some Little Rock suburb streets flooded from nine inches of rain.
Benjamin DuBose, a driver in that area said, "I thought I'll go about a mile ... and then I just saw it was never ending."
Another driver, David Shilling, told CBS News, "Oh it's bad. You can see where you're going, but you can't get there because you're so backed up."
The powerful system moved its way through the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, showing up in the northeast Tuesday afternoon, and is projected to bring hazardous rainfall and snow to New England's holiday travelers.
Delays were beginning to mount Tuesday night at Philadelphia International Airport.
One passenger in Philadelphia said his flight was an hour late. Another said, "A lot of these flights are on a ... delay, that's -- you're missing connections."
AAA spokesman Troy Green says, "We're expecting 42.5 million Americans to travel during this Thanksgiving holiday period. Ninety percent of all travelers will do so by car, and...about 3.5 million Americans will travel by air. ... But for those in those affected areas, they may have to alter their travel plans a little bit instead of leaving on Wednesday they may have to leave on Thursday or on Friday or instead of coming back on Sunday, they may have to come back on Saturday."
Bowers added on "The Early Show," that the good news is that people in "flyover country" -- the middle of the U.S. -- should have a relatively smooth trip if they decided to drive.
In her holiday forecast, Melissa Mack, of CBS Boston station WBZ-TV, said much of the nation will be quiet, but some are likely looking at snow ahead. She said, "(The Northeast) is looking at some heavy wet snow, specifically from central Maine and the northern tier of New Hampshire, and Vermont could see more than 12 inches of heavy, wet snow. The majority of the area across central Vermont and New Hampshire will get 6 to 12 inches, and as you head towards your Thanksgiving holiday, again, very quiet for most areas."
"Early Show" co-anchor Chris Wragge remarked, "It's not like there's bad weather everywhere, but there are big systems over some serious hubs, which will lead to delays across the country and that's what you need to watch out for."