CHARLOTTE, N. C. (AP) – Snow, sleet and freezing rain pelted a wide swath of the South overnight, turning roads icy and impassable in spots as children whooped it up on sleds and others braced for up to a foot of snow in parts of the Carolinas and Virginia.
New North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper was to have an outdoor inaugural ceremony Saturday attended by thousands. He instead rushed through a 20-minute indoor oath-taking Friday before settling into his first assignment – storm preparedness.
“Consider yourselves the chosen few,” Cooper jokingly told those able to attend his swearing-in Friday. Instead of Saturday’s daylong ceremonies and parade, he planned to open with a morning storm briefing before addressing the state via television.
Much of North Carolina is under a winter storm warning until 7 p.m. Saturday. Its Triad and Research Triangle areas could get up to 9 inches of snow, while a foot could fall on northeastern North Carolina.
“Whenever snow comes people get really excited. I’m a little excited,” said Donovan Cheatham, who studies music at North Carolina Central University and plays in jazz bands. He and roommate Collin Williams said if they get snowed in, they may miss a paying gig but will jam anyway – Collins on alto saxophone and Cheatham on drums.
“Practice. We’ll get a lot of practice in,” Williams said.
Lauren Rathbone, manager of Public Hardware in Durham, North Carolina, said the store sold out of more than 100 sleds Friday, along with bags and bags of ice melt to treat driveways and walks.
“At the beginning, it’s ice melt and sleds. Closer to it when people start realizing it’s going to be super cold, they’ll start working on kerosene heaters, kerosene wicks … Probably Saturday somebody’s going to be out of electricity, and they’ll start working on lamps,” she quipped.
A blizzard warning for southeast Virginia accompanied forecasts of up to a foot of snow there. Winds in the warning area, which includes Norfolk and Virginia Beach, could reach 30 mph with gusts up to 45 mph.
One fatality – a man whose pickup truck went off a snow-slickened Kentucky road Thursday – has been reported. But the winter road mess caused hundreds of fender benders and other non-injury crashes, some involving school buses, on Nashville, Tennessee, roads by Friday.
Nashville’s city school district ordered classes to start as scheduled Friday morning but had to hastily announce early dismissals as police reports of non-injury crashes multiplied. All students made it safely home.
“We apologize,” Nashville Schools Chief Operating Officer Chris Henson said. “We realize that it’s been very frustrating for everyone.”
Ice forming Friday evening near sunset made driving dangerous on some Mississippi highways. State transportation officials reported ice on roads and bridges in more than half of the state’s counties.
And Alabama was under a winter storm warning until Saturday morning from the wintry mix. By midday, the storm was expected to clear out, but ice would likely remain as highs would only get into the 30s. By Tuesday, temperatures are expected to reach almost balmy 50s and 60s.
In Georgia, 2 to 4 inches of snow could cover northern parts of the state by Saturday morning, forecasters said. Though rain and freezing rain fell at times in Atlanta, its workers, schools and companies dismissed early Friday, avoiding the epic snowstorm traffic jam of January 2014 that stranded motorists in cars on interstates. Some took to sledding in snow-coated northern Atlanta suburbs and in Tennessee.
Though south Louisiana was spared sleet and ice, people in greater New Orleans braved an unseasonable cold snap Friday to kick off the long Mardi Gras Season in steady rain. Many were buffeted by chill winds as they waited in lines to buy celebratory cakes, then closed out a rainy night with masked and costumed street car rides before night temperatures dipped into the 30s.
David Roe, who helped organize one Carnival street car ride, seemed undeterred by cold and rain, adding, “We like to have a party.”
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Associated Press writers Kim Chandler in Montgomery, Alabama, and Rebecca Santana in New Orleans, Jonathan Drew in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Ben Finley in Norfolk, Virginia, contributed to this report. Martin reported from Atlanta.
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The man police say opened fire with a gun from his checked baggage at a Florida airport had a history of mental health problems – some of which followed his military service in Iraq – and was receiving psychological treatment at his home in Alaska, his relatives said Friday after the deadly shooting.
“Only thing I could tell you was when he came out of Iraq , he wasn’t feeling too good,” his uncle, Hernan Rivera, told The Record newspaper (http://bit.ly/2j04ghF ).
Esteban Santiago , 26, deployed in 2010 as part of the Puerto Rico National Guard, spending a year with an engineering battalion, according to Guard spokesman Maj. Paul Dahlen.
In recent years, Santiago had been living in Anchorage , Alaska, his brother, Bryan Santiago, told The Associated Press from Puerto Rico. Bryan Santiago said his brother’s girlfriend had recently called the family to alert them to his treatment.
In November, Esteban told FBI agents in Alaska that the government was controlling his mind and was forcing him to watch Islamic State group videos, a law enforcement official said. The official was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation by name and spoke Friday on condition of anonymity.
The FBI agents notified the police after the interview with Esteban Santiago , who took him in for a mental health evaluation.
Bryan Santiago said his brother never spoke to him directly about his medical issues.
“We have not talked for the past three weeks,” Bryan Santiago said. “That’s a bit unusual … I’m in shock. He was a serious person … He was a normal person.”
Esteban Santiago was born in New Jersey but moved to Puerto Rico when he was 2, his brother said. He grew up in the southern coastal town of Penuelas before joining the Guard in 2007.
Since returning from Iraq , Santiago served in the Army Reserves and the Alaska National Guard in Anchorage. He was serving as a combat engineer in the Guard before his discharge for “unsatisfactory performance,” said Lt. Col. Candis Olmstead, a spokeswoman. His military rank upon discharge was E3, private 1st class, and he worked one weekend a month with an additional 15 days of training yearly, Olmstead said.
She would not elaborate on his discharge, but the Pentagon said he went AWOL several times and was demoted and discharged.
Still, he’d had some successes during his military career, being awarded a number of medals and commendations including the Iraq Campaign Medal and the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal.
His uncle and aunt in New Jersey were trying to make sense of what they were hearing about Santiago after his arrest at the Fort Lauderdale airport. FBI agents arrived at their house to question them, and reporters swarmed around.
Maria Ruiz told The Record that her nephew had recently become a father and was struggling.
“It was like he lost his mind,” she said in Spanish of his return from Iraq . “He said he saw things.”
Santiago was flying from Anchorage on a Delta flight and had checked only one piece of luggage, which contained the gun.
Santiago was charged in a domestic violence case in January 2016, damaging a door when he forced his way into a bathroom at his girlfriend’s Anchorage home. The woman told officers he yelled at her to leave, strangled her and smacked her on the side of the head, according to charging documents.
A month later municipal prosecutors said he violated the conditions of his release when officers found him at her home during a routine check. He told police he had lived there since he was released from custody the previous month. His Anchorage attorney, Max Holmquist, declined to discuss his client.
Law enforcement officers were at the girlfriend’s home Friday afternoon, and officers guarding the property outside told a reporter who approached the home to step away.
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Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico ; Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska; Rachel D’Oro and Mark Thiessen in Anchorage , Alaska; and Lolita C. Baldor and Eric Tucker in Washington contributed to this report.
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This story has been corrected to show Santiago served in the Alaska National Guard in Anchorage , not Fairbanks, per new information from the Guard .
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By Zachary Fagenson
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (Reuters) – An Iraq war veteran took a gun out of his checked luggage and opened fire in a crowded baggage claim area at Fort Lauderdale’s airport on Friday, killing five people, months after he showed up at an FBI office behaving erratically.
Esteban Santiago, 26, who was taken into custody immediately following the shooting and questioned at length, was expected to face federal charges in the shooting rampage, said George Piro, special agent in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s office in Miami.
Piro said investigators had not ruled out terrorism as a possible motive in the rampage and were reviewing the suspect’s recent travel.
Santiago, who had served in the U. S. military, had arrived in Ft. Lauderdale shortly before 1 p.m. local time (1800 GMT) on a connecting flight from Alaska, authorities said, when he retrieved a 9mm semi-automatic handgun from his checked luggage and began firing indiscriminately.
Broward County Commissioner Chip LaMarca said on Twitter that the gunman went into a restroom to load his weapon and came out firing. Witnesses told MSNBC television he only stopped after running out of ammunition, at which point he surrendered to police.
Cellphone video posted on social media showed travelers kneeling and treating victims on the floor next to a carousel. At least two victims had pools of blood from apparent head wounds.
The gunman, who wore a “Star Wars” T-shirt, said nothing as he fired, witnesses told MSNBC.
“This is a senseless act of evil,” Florida Governor Rick Scott told reporters.
A White House spokesman said President Barack Obama had spoken to Scott and Broward County Mayor Barbara Sharief and had extended his condolences to the loved ones of the victims.
In addition to the five killed, eight others were wounded by gunfire and some three dozen were taken to local hospitals with bruises or broken bones suffered in the chaos surrounding the shooting massacre.
Piro said that Santiago had turned up at an FBI office in Anchorage in November of last year behaving erratically and was turned over to local police, who took him to a medical facility for a mental evaluation.
A federal law enforcement official told Reuters that Santiago told agents at the Anchorage office in November that his mind was being controlled by a U. S. intelligence agency, which was ordering him to watch Islamic State videos.
Santiago served from 2007 to 2016 in the Puerto Rico National Guard and Alaska National Guard including a deployment to Iraq from 2010 to 2011, according to the Pentagon.
A private first class and combat engineer, he received half a dozen medals before being transferred to the inactive ready reserve in August last year.
An aunt said he came back from his deployment “a different person,” MSNBC reported.
LEGAL TO FLY WITH GUNS
Flying with firearms is routine and legal in the United States as long as the guns are kept in a locked, hard-sided container as checked baggage only, under TSA rules. Ammunition is prohibited in carry-on bags but is allowed in checked luggage.
The attack was the latest in a series of mass shootings that have plagued the United States in recent years, some inspired by militants with an extreme view of Islam, others carried out by loners or the mentally disturbed.
John Schlicher, who told MSNBC he saw the attack, said the shooter was “directly firing at us” while passengers waited for their bags. His wife gave first aid to a victim who had been shot in the head, and his mother-in-law used her sweater to tend to another victim but it turned out that person was already dead, he said.
Mark Lea, another eyewitness, told MSNBC, “He didn’t say anything; he was quiet the whole time.”
Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport is the second largest in South Florida, serving as an intercontinental gateway.
Nearly two months ago a former Southwest Airlines worker killed an employee of the company at Oklahoma City’s airport in what police called a premeditated act.
The deadliest mass shooting in modern U. S. history took place last June, when a gunman apparently inspired by Islamic State killed 49 people and wounded 53 at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins, Letitia Stein, Jeffrey Dastin, Joseph Ax, Jonathan Allen, Gina Cherelus, Mark Hosenball and Laila Kearney; Writing by Daniel Trotta and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by James Dalgleish and Lisa Shumaker)

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