Winter Storm Closes |Courts in Several States

(CN) - The monster storm bearing down on the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Friday closed courts and government buildings in at least five states.

Courts already had been closed in the Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia by Friday morning, and courts in several other states along the East Coast either didn't open at all, or began closing by early afternoon.

South Carolina Chief Justice Costa Pleicones directed that all proceedings in state, county and municipal courts follow the directives of their county or municipal government officials.

The same goes for all county and municipal employees, Pleciones said.

By mid-morning, ice and snow in upstate South Carolina had caused closures in Greenville, Spartanburg, Pickens, York, Cherokee, Chester, Chesterfield, Fairfield, Lancaster and Oconee counties, as well as the cities of Greenville, Greer, Simpsonville and Mauldin.

All state judicial employees were advised to monitor scemd.org/closings for status reports.

The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for the South Carolina's upstate counties through 7 p.m. Saturday. In addition to 4 to 5 inches of snow and dangerous ice conditions, the passing storm is expected to bring wind gusts of up to 25 miles per hour.

This, in turn, could cause widespread power outages, the Weather Service said.

AccuWeather has also warned that that swaths of Interstate-85 in the upstate could turn into a "nearly invisible glaze of ice."

More than 1,400 Duke Energy utility workers from Florida and elsewhere moved to the Carolinas on Thursday in anticipation of widespread power outages caused by snow and sleet.

State courts in Tennessee are closed today, as are federal courts in the West and Middle Districts of Tennessee.

The courts in Wake, Durham, Alamance and Orange counties in North Carolina are closed, as are courts in West Virginia.

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