More than 180,000 customers in about 30 counties across Virginia were without power on Wednesday, and the authorities said they were investigating more than 900 traffic accidents after a storm unloaded about a foot of snow in some areas of the state.
The storm was part of a pattern of wintry weather that also swept through Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, southern Pennsylvania and New Jersey from Tuesday through Wednesday, closing schools and triggering accidents that blocked roads.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia declared a state of emergency ahead of the storm and the state Department of Transportation warned residents to stay off the roads through Wednesday.
More than 180,000 customers were without power early Wednesday afternoon, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks data from utility companies. Some of the heaviest snowfall in the Mid-Atlantic region fell in Virginia and West Virginia, measuring more than a foot in some places, the National Weather Service said.
Robin Lawson, a spokeswoman with the Virginia State Police, said on Wednesday that there were 928 crashes throughout the commonwealth from just after midnight on Tuesday through midday Wednesday, 93 of which involved injuries.
The State Police were still working to confirm whether all of those accidents were related to the storm, she said in an interview.
“This is a storm that has touched the western portion of the commonwealth all the way to the eastern side with freezing rain and snow,” she said.
Freezing rain was in the forecast through Thursday in the western region of the state, but winter weather warnings were canceled as temperatures inched over 32 degrees, the Weather Service said on Wednesday.
Power outages, downed trees and hazardous road conditions were likely through early Thursday because of ice accumulations across the southern and central regions, it said.
Craig Carper, a spokesman for Dominion Energy, which provides services to more than 2.7 million customers in the most densely populated parts of Virginia, said that about 110,000 of the company’s customers were without power early Wednesday afternoon, mostly because of ice accumulation on tree branches and power lines.
The company was bracing for more outages as freezing rain moved into the western part of the state, Mr. Carper said in an interview.
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