- Good morning.

Thank you for joining us today.

As we share updates on another winter storm coming to North Carolina.

>> Groundhog Day is just around the corner and it's starting to feel a bit like Groundhog Week here in North Carolina since we were just up here last Wednesday.

I'm joined by director of emergency management Will Ray.

Secretary of Transportation Daniel Johnson, secretary of Public Safety, Jeff Smyth, Major General Todd Hunt of the North Carolina National Guard and the commander of the state Highway Patrol Colonel Freddy Johnson.

Jackie, Metivier and Yasmin Polizzi our our Spanish language interpreters, our American sign language interpreter is Mark Lindbergh and the other is Stephen Holland.

If you were disappointed by how few snowflakes fell this past weekend, I have some good news for you.

And if you're tired of winter weather, some bad news, this is going to be with us a little bit longer.

Starting overnight and continuing through Sunday morning.

We expect snowfall across most of the state.

However, we don't anticipate ice storms that created the risk of widespread power outages last weekend.

But still, we must be prepared.

The snow is going to come with strong winds and bitterly cold temperatures.

In many places.

We don't expect to get above freezing until early next week.

So whatever snow falls on Saturday is going to stick around for a while.

In coastal North Carolina, especially the outer banks, strong tides and high winds could also cause flooding.

Strong winds combined with snow can create whiteout conditions, making driving treacherous.

We are prepared to respond to whatever the storm may bring.

Yesterday I declared a state of emergency across North Carolina.

This will help us qualify for any federal assistance.

We may need.

We've activated the state emergency response team, a cross agency group that includes the Department of Transportation Department of Public Safety, North Carolina National Guard, State Highway Patrol and our state's utilities.

And C dot crews have been working in shifts around the clock on deicing operations to clear the roadways from what's left from the past weekend storm, an anti-icing operations to prepare for the roads for the coming weather.

At the privilege of seeing a number of these workers yesterday at the NC Dot Westgate facility also known as Brian Mountain to thank them in person.

These folks have been working 90 100 hour weeks to keep us safe.

We all owe them and the many other public servants putting in overtime on our behalf, a debt of genuine gratitude.

Some of our local government partners are starting to open warming centers.

So check your local government management agency's website to see what our options are available near you.

At this time because of expected snow accumulation, cold temperatures and wind gusts.

Our greatest concern isn't safe.

Travel.

So please take a second look at your weekend.

Plans.

Stay home and off the roads during winter weather.

And if you live in coastal North Carolina, the alert for flooding that the strong winds may will likely bring.

Do not drive through flood waters.

For the most up-to-date roadway information visit, drive and C .gov.

And no matter where you live, make sure you're turned it tuned in to your local media.

The National Weather Service and your local emergency management agency for the latest updates and recommendations.

Today is the day to get prepared.

Make sure you got non-perishable food.

Plenty of water and batteries and other supplies.

In case you get stuck at home or lose power.

And please check on your neighbors who may be vulnerable.

Let's stick together.

Keep each other safe and hope for a fun snow day here in North Carolina, something that we don't get all that often.

Thank you.

And I'm now going forward director Ray and then Secretary Johnson.

Thank you, Governor.

Good morning, everyone.

A significant weather storm is forecast to begin this afternoon across the mountains expanding east throughout the evening and overnight periods.

>> Widespread snowfall is forecast for this event and locally significant snowfall amounts are expected in addition to snowfall dangerously cold temperatures and strong wind gusts are forecast through the weekend.

The strong wind gusts will bring below 0 wind chills across the state and the possibility of coastal flooding.

Cold temperatures will linger into early next week.

Prolonging snowfall impacts.

Winter storm warning will go into effect statewide late this afternoon across the mountains and Piedmont and overnight Friday into Saturday across the coastal plain, widespread snowfall amounts between 3 to 8 inches are forecast across the state, especially across the coastal plain where the greatest snowfall amounts are most likely significant snowfall amounts of 8 to 12 inches are likely across portions of the state but are dependent on where the heaviest snowfall bands develop.

A cold weather advisory will go into effect overnight Friday through overnight Saturday across the eastern half of the state.

We're near 0.

Wind chills are forecast.

And extreme cold watch will go into effect for portions of the mountains from Saturday afternoon until Sunday afternoon in the Piedmont from Saturday evening through Sunday morning.

And in the coastal plain from late Saturday night through Monday morning.

Wind chills are forecast to be as low as 22 degrees below 0 across the mountains, 5 to 10 degrees below 0 for the Piedmont and 5 degrees below 0 for the coastal plain.

High wind warning and wind advisory will be in effect Saturday afternoon and evening across much of the coast.

Wind gusts within the high wind warning area are forecast to be up to 55 to 70 miles per hour and wind gusts within the wind advisory area are forecast to be up to 45 miles per hour.

All North Carolinians should be finalizing plans now and should be prepared to stay home and off the roadway.

Starting tonight through early next week.

If you need information to assist in your preparation, please visit Ready, NC, .gov.

The State Emergency response team, including all interagency Partners, Private sector nonprofit in volunteer agencies remain activated.

There are 4 local states of emergencies and 21 local emergency operation centers activated or and monitoring status.

We continue to support to monitor the distribution.

And as of this morning, the state Emergency response team has distributed approximately 550 blankets to assist communities with shelter and warming center operations.

Should they be required?

This is in addition to the approximately 1700 cots and blankets and 127 pallets of meals ready to eat or Mr.

Ease and drinking water that were shipped last weekend to supplement local supply.

Many communities across the state are opening or staging for shelter locations, warming stations for the most up-to-date information on those resources available in your community.

Please visit your local government and local emergency management agency's website and social media accounts.

The North Carolina National Guard, the entirety of the North Platte I state Highway Patrol, the North Carolina Forest Service and the Office of Emergency Medical Services among others are all active and moving on to station today across the state to assist local communities and state partners with clearing roadways, responding to emergencies and the transportation needs.

73, North Carolina, National Guard force packages will be on station by tonight and will be assisting with clearing roadways from downed trees, helping disabled motorists, supplementing first responders in assisting with commodity distribution, these force packages include approximately 341 soldiers and 131 vehicles.

Well, this is not forecast to be a nice event like last weekend posing a widespread threat to our utility partners.

We remain in close coordination with our energy sector organizations who are represented here at the State Emergency Operations Center.

And we'll be closely monitoring power outage information to quickly assist in restoring power in communities that do see outages.

Communications personnel and equipment have been pre-deployment assist with any degradation of 9-1-1.

Systems, radio systems and phone systems.

And as a reminder, 9-1-1, should be used for emergencies.

Only for general information.

Please call 2, 1, 1, or follow your local government and emergency management websites and social media accounts.

Finally, as I continue to say, please check on your friends, your family members, your neighbors, are those in your community who may need additional support this weekend.

We're going to see significant winter storm impacts this weekend and we are stronger and more resilient together.

Thank you, Governor Rauner now turn it over to Secretary Johnson from NC DOT.

Thank you, governor and director C dot crews have been operating in overdrive since we started preparing for last week's storm.

>> And we're not letting our foot off the gas, but we're still clearing areas of the state that experience particularly cold temperatures in the heart and ice on the roads since last weekend's storm.

Our resources, a larger shift.

Our resources preparing for the ice storm approaching that of the snowstorm approaching this weekend.

We're closely watching the storm.

The latest forecast shows the storm will have statewide impacts on the transportation system and carries the potential for severe impacts on us to make significant portion of that system.

As we did last week.

We're encouraging people to stay off the roads as much as possible.

The next few days.

We appreciate everyone's cooperation and limiting travel over the past week because North Carolinians heeded the warnings last weekend we had 0 traffic fatalities related to the storm.

And for that, we're very grateful.

By staying off the roads.

You help keep yourself and your family safe and give our crews the space they need to do their important work.

Speaking of that work, I want to take a moment to recognize that thousands of DOT employees and contractors who have put in a major effort of the last 10 days.

I'm thankful for all their work and for all the work they'll do over the next several days to help us recover.

Over the past.

36 hours or so.

These crews have put out an additional 1.4 million gallons of brine.

The pre treat our roads.

This will help keep more ice from forming on the pavement.

Once a safe to do so.

Our crews will be running plows to remove snow from the roads and spread sand and salt to help with traction.

Rest assured we'll be working hard to clear the roads as quickly as possible.

We asked for your patience as we work through the recovery, especially with more cold temperatures to come in the days ahead.

As I mention, this storm will impact the entire state.

One area we're watching particularly closely as the outer banks and other areas along the coast as director and the governor shared in addition to the snow, the storm brings the potential for high winds across the state in particular along the coast.

One thing we're sure watching closely as the potential for over wash, particularly in the outer banks.

This could present dangerous and potentially impassable conditions for driving on the coast.

Our crews are ready to respond and will restore the roadway as quickly as possible.

And as we did last week, work with the state Highway Patrol, remove disabled vehicles from the roadway.

This helps keep the roads and shoulder safe for our crews and other involved and others involved in emergency response in the days ahead.

We'll continue working with our partners, the Highway Patrol and the National Guard throughout the storm.

Please stay informed and if possible, stay put throughout the duration of the storm until it's deemed safe to travel.

People can visit Drive-In C .gov.

To view the latest road conditions and other storm-related information.

Thank you.

We'll turn to cover the governor for questions.

Secretary, thank you so much.

If there any questions in the room, please go to the market funds on either side.

>> And then we will go to questions online afterward.

Hey, Adam, I can be on scene >> one of the concerns over wash.

Obviously some of the house on the outer banks that are sort of teetering right now.

I know the folks in Bucks to neighborhood and even asking for local state of emergency for a little while.

Could this necessitate that and sort of how can have its weather may cleaning up those houses?

What if what if they follow it?

>> Yeah, the statewide emergency applies to the entire state, including the outer banks and Buxton.

Unfortunately, the declaration doesn't trigger any special assistance that's really relevant to them.

What it does is enable us to move resources to help respond to emergencies.

There is legislation in Congress sponsored by Congressman Murphy, which both certain second commissioner of Insurance, Mike Causey and I have supported in Everett and to Congress in that support, which would enable the flood program.

The National Flood Insurance Program to actually buy out homes before they tumble into the ocean.

Then it creates an environmental mess.

Much smarter for us to try to remove those homes that are at-risk of falling into the ocean before it does so.

>> And then yesterday you heard of from workers who spent work last night in an hour's underway hours, giving an estimate on the total cost of last week's storm to the state.

Any kind of predictions for what this one could cost?

I don't have a total cost on a will.

If you think it's too early at this point.

>> Clearly, dot has had experienced a great deal of overtime.

State Highway Patrol has incurred a great deal over time.

The National Guard incurs expenses every time it gets deployed.

And so yes, there are real costs to the state.

We have an emergency fund, the General assembly appropriates money into that.

We can draw down for these kinds of operations.

But there is a cost.

And as it becomes clear, we're happy to share it with you.

>> Governor Christine C with NC Newsline what preparations are being made in regards to the power grid that any potential outages.

>> We are in constant contact with our energy partners, whether that Duke energy, the electric co-ops, the Elektra cities and they're here.

We know where their greatest worries are.

Fortunately, with this storm that is less of a concern than last week because last week's was an ice storm.

This is a snowstorm.

Ice is much heavier.

The snow.

So it's more likely to create Lynn breakage is or trees toppling over.

It's more likely to wait the lines and break those so with snow.

We don't think there will be as many power outages.

And fortunately, we didn't experience too many last year.

Think the peak was maybe 20 25,000 loss of power at any one time.

So that's not to say that there will not be power outages if the snowfall comes in at the high end communities experience 15 inches of snow.

That's a lot of weight and that will knock over trees and that will knock over power lines.

It's just we they call this a band of the storm where the snow is going to come in bands.

It's not going to be uniform across the entire county.

You may have one town and the county that has 12 to 15 inches.

If it's have a and another may have 6 or 7 or 8.

And so it will be localized.

I know that our utility partners are ready to go.

All right.

We'll take questions online if there are any please identify yourself for us.

Question.

>> Raise, raise your hand when the police turned this immense.

That's your question.

I'll thank you so much again for taking our questions.

>> Just wondering for listeners out here in the West, if there's anything in particular that folks should be aware of or any particular precautions that they should take half of this storm.

Thank you so much.

>> Yes, that this snow intensity, it's going to be significant, but not this much is the far East, which is a little bit upside down from what we're used to.

Where we will see real issues and far west as temperatures.

The temperatures going to be bitterly cold wind chill AB -20 degrees.

Obviously the risks of frostbite and hypothermia become very elevated when you have temperatures that low.

So folks just need to not be outside if they possibly can.

And if they are outside, make sure that you are well dressed wearing lots of leathers and covering all exposed skin.

If you have to drive in, there is snow.

Make sure that you have a safety package in the car with you because if you run off the road and temperatures like that, it can be very dangerous.

>> There are no more questions online.

Very good.

Thank you all very much.