Governor Glenn Youngkin has a simple message for Virginians — "If you're not where you need to be by midnight, don't go."
That was the primary point Youngkin made during a press conference Tuesday, where he talked about the need for Virginians to be vigilant amidst another winter storm. He asked everyone across the Commonwealth to get out of the way of treatment trucks Tuesday so that roadways can be best prepared ahead of Wednesday's snow.
Youngkin added that his emergency declaration from last week's winter weather is still in place.
"If there wasn't one that had already been declared, I would be declaring one today. The snowstorm that we have coming is going to be severe; it's going to impact a vast majority of the state."
The governor said many areas across the state are still reeling from power outages from wintry weather and flooding over the last week. For comparison, Virginia saw 315,000 outages during Hurricane Helene in September. Over the last week, the state saw 450,000 during the peak of outages from ice.
Youngkin also said Virginia is moving resources around the state — including onto the Eastern Shore which doesn't have a lot of snow removal equipment. Emergency personnel and other response equipment used this past weekend in Southwest Virginia for flooding there will stay there to help with the incoming snowstorm. That includes a National Guard deployment. Youngkin says other deployments are headed to Lynchburg, Richmond and Southside Virginia as well.
For Wednesday, the entire state is looking at a snow event. Winter Weather Advisories and Winter Storm Warnings are in place from Wise to Richmond and beyond. Anywhere from two to six inches of accumulating snow is forecasted, with localized areas — especially in far Southwest Virginia — set to see even more.
