Americans stripped supermarket shelves ahead of potentially "catastrophic" winter weather that threatened at least 160 million people across the country.
From Texas to Washington DC, shoppers have encountered bare shelves as people prepare for a massive winter storm expected to impact large portions of the US this weekend.
Ice, snow and sleet could begin falling later Friday in Texas and Oklahoma. The storm was expected to slide into the South with freezing rain and sleet.
Then it will move into the Northeast, dumping about 30 centimeters of snow from Washington, DC, through New York and Boston, the National Weather Service predicted.
More than 2,700 weekend flights have already been cancelled including many in and outbound from Texas.
State officials there vow the grid is in better shape than it was five years ago, when it failed during a deadly winter storm and left millions without power.
Republican Governor Greg Abbott told journalists the grid "has never been stronger, never been more prepared and is fully capable of handling this winter storm."
Yet Michael Webber, a University of Texas engineering professor, warned ice accumulations would remain "a big risk" across the country -- ice could amass and weigh down trees, for example, downing power lines and provoking outages.
