Winter storm upends holiday plans on one of the busiest travel days of the year

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• Roby Chavez:

  On one of the busiest travel days of the year, people across the country are finding themselves in the same position, trapped where they started.

• Veronica Wyman, Traveler:

  Tired, stressed, hungry, just hopeless, honestly.

• Roby Chavez:

  The National Weather Service reporting that 190 million Americans are under some type of winter weather advisory, spanning a vast part of the country, from the Plains and Midwest to the East Coast.

  The blizzard-like conditions do not bode well for thousands trying to make it home for the holidays, creating even more chaos at overwhelmed airports, with thousands of cancellations.

  Some travelers are deciding to take matters into their own hands and skip the airport where they can.

• Brandon Mattis, Traveler:

  We're trying to search on our phones, figure out other routes, maybe even taking a bus from here to Atlanta, which it'll take us about 21 hours, so that's really inconvenient, but anything we can do just to get there is what we're going to do.

• Joey Larson, Traveler:

  We have been monitoring the travel concerns for the past couple days since we heard the blizzard is going to Minneapolis, where we're heading, yes, and hoping we make it there on time and safely. And, once we get there, we're hoping we can drive safely to our destination.

  It's just a little hectic right now. We're not exactly sure.

• Roby Chavez:

  But, in the Midwest in particular, road conditions are also posing a challenge. Roadways in Nebraska and Iowa are slick and blanketed in snow.

  And, in South Dakota, this video from a local sheriff's office captured a bottleneck of over 100 cars on Interstate 90 late yesterday. Stranded motorists were rescued and taken to emergency shelters. With the worst of the heavy snow and powerful winds still to come, President Biden warns travelers to get out as early as they can, starting with his own staffers.

  Joe Biden, President of the United States: If you all have travel plans, leave now. Not — not a joke. I'm tell — sending my staff — my staff, if they have plans to leave on — tomorrow — late tonight or tomorrow, I'm telling them to leave now. They can talk to me on the phone. It's not life and death.

  But it will be if they don't — if they don't get out.

• Roby Chavez:

  Wintry conditions are expected through Saturday.

  For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Roby Chavez.