Heavy rains and winds in the center, northeast and south of the country this weekend threaten to complicate plans to return home after the Thanksgiving holiday, according to the National Weather Service.
This Sunday it was reported that some
2,564 flights
to, from or within the United States had delays, our sister network NBC News reported, which also claimed that some 63 had been cancelled.
An image of the congestion on Wednesday, November 23, just one day before Thanksgiving. Steven Senne / AP
Nearly 55 million people are expected to travel 5 miles or more to return home this weekend, according to AAA.
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LaGuardia Airport and others in New York urged their passengers to arrive early: "We cannot stress this enough: plan and arrive early if you are traveling over the Thanksgiving holiday," the airport wrote on Twitter.
The same was requested by the Newark and John F. Kennedy airports: "The holiday season means there is a high volume of passengers", "Include extra time in your plans to find parking spaces, check in and go through security" .
Warnings of strong winds for 9 million people
A tornado in Louisiana on Saturday afternoon with sustained winds of 100 miles per hour touched down in the town of Paradis, Louisiana, about 29 miles southwest of New Orleans.
The storm ripped the roof off a home, flipped an RV and damaged the roof of a church, Phil Grisby of the National Weather Service reported.
Although "flights are through the roof" millions of people will fly on Thanksgiving (but most will travel by car)
Nov 24, 202201:46
The 200-mile-wide tornado touched land for about three-quarters of miles, downing leaves, damaging trees and lifting shingles off residential roofs, Grisby added.
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Wind advisories have been issued for 9 million people across the Southeast, including New York, Baton Rouge and New Orleans in Louisiana, Birmingham, Hunstsville and Asheville, Alabama.
The alerts were in effect from Saturday night through Sunday morning.
With information from
NBC
and
CNN