DC urges residents to stay off roads, shelter in place during blizzard
WASHINGTON - D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and other city leaders gathered Friday to discuss the District's plans to keep people safe through a potentially historic blizzard that could dump more than 2 feet of snow on Washington.
TIMELINE: When The Heaviest Snow Will Fall
Bowser said D.C. was fully staffed in anticipation of the arrival of wet, heavy snow and winds that could gust up to 50 mph. She stated time and again that city residents should be prepared for power outages and should shelter in place during the anticipated blizzard conditions.
"By 3 o'clock today you need to be where you're going to be throughout this storm," said Christopher Geldart, Director of the District of Columbia's Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. Geldart echoed the Mayor and said crews would work quickly to keep main roads and side streets as passable as possible for emergency vehicles.
"Snowmageddon was multiple storms put together over several days," Geldart said. "We're going to get an equivalent of three of those storms that happened over that time - in one storm."
Full clean up, he said, would take at least one week.