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Book in minutes at vaccassist.com. Sponsored by Pfizer. It's 5.05 and welcome in to a Friday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour on Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 FM, WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you.
A little bit of a deja vu situation unfolding here across the Tar Heels State this morning as all 100 counties across the state of North Carolina are under a winter storm warning. As for the second weekend in a row, the state of North Carolina is facing a major significant winter weather event that has once again prompted the governor to declare a state of emergency ahead of this weekend's projected snowstorm, which could bring between six and ten inches of snow essentially to the entire state of North Carolina as the forecast models continue to hone in on exactly what those totals are going to look like. According to a Thursday morning briefing by the National Weather Service in Raleigh, The state does remain under that winter storm warning. Widespread power outages are not expected, a little bit of a different setup than what we saw last weekend, but winds are expected to pick up during and after the storm, which may lead to some outages, especially in the eastern half of North Carolina, where some blizzard conditions could likely be felt as you get into the outer banks. This is the second state of emergency that the governor has declared in the past week as a devastating ice storm was expected to hit North Carolina last weekend.
Thankfully, due to some of the dynamics of that system, it was more sleet than ice, unless you were in the absolute westernmost portions of North Carolina. And snow totals were kept way down as well, causing very few power outages across the state. Only about 35,000 at its peak. That would have been Sunday night into early parts of Monday morning.
However, we are likely to see another major round of snow this weekend. The governor saying during the Thursday press briefing, we don't believe we had any traffic fatalities last week because of the storm in a state of 11 million people. That is remarkable, and it is a testament to the NCDOT's hard work to clear the roads. It's a testament to the highway patrol making sure that the roads were cleared of abandoned vehicles and being out on the road, as well as a testament to the North Carolina National Guard. I saw a great video of them getting trucks out of the median.
These folks care deeply about their work, making sure that people are safe. And then finally, it is a testament to people staying home. NCDOT crews worked about a hundred hours, worked about 100-hour week, according to the governor. They were out Thursday brining area roadways, trying to get ahead of the storm, which is expected to start late Friday night in the western half of North Carolina and continue into early Sunday morning. That will be in the easternmost portions of the state.
They will, of course, continue. Those prep, those brining operations throughout the day today ahead of the snowfall. There is some concern about overwash from the tides in the outer banks, and there is all the way up and down the east coast of North Carolina a plethora of marine and other sort of ocean hazards. As this storm system is actually not too dissimilar from what you would expect with a hurricane, some sort of tropical system, as a very powerful, low-pressure system will be just off the coast of the Carolinas by Saturday, spinning into a dangerous nor'easter as it tracks north along the coast. This coastal storm, as we've mentioned, is set to drop heavy snow over the vast majority of North and South Carolina, of Virginia, as well as coastal sections of the Mid-Atlantic.
Deal now with their second major winter weather event in a row. Like many states during a storm, North Carolina road crews are prioritizing interstates and more heavily trafficked roadways first, then major state roads, and finally secondary roads.
However, there is no guarantee of when that will actually happen. Other states like New York and Pennsylvania have roads owned by counties or municipalities that have separate road crews apart from their state DOT, where some of that work can all be done at the same time. Governor Stein said, we wish after a big storm that it would be about 24 hours, but that's just not the way that the world works.
So we ask people to be patient and to understand that it's better to not be on the roads. He said that the state isn't sure yet whether it will need to request a separate federal emergency declaration, apart from the one granted last week by President Donald Trump, which they already are possibly considering expanding to cover additional expenses that the state has occurred. Both he and Emergency Management Director Will Ray stressed that just because they requested the funding doesn't necessarily mean that they will receive it.
However, I'll note that this administration has done a pretty good job, has done a pretty good job at doling out these declarations and these emergency declarations that we have seen. Another briefing from the governor and state officials is expected to take place later today. Obviously, you'll hear continued coverage of that throughout the day right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9. FM WBT. Here's some sad news to pass along to you this morning.
Back on January the 26th, Kim Delaney, a Democrat candidate for the 73rd district of the North Carolina House of Representatives, representing parts of Cabarris County, passed away unexpectedly. The Concord resident passed away at the age of just 46, surrounded by her family. According to the North Carolina Democrat Party, they said in a recent statement: Kim was a devoted mother and leaves behind two children. Our thoughts are with them as well, as well as with Kim's family and loved ones during this incredibly difficult time. Kim was a kind, sincere, caring person who believed in community and showing up for others.
Before her passing, Delaney was a community advocate and led a local nonprofit and small business focused on wellness and housing, according to recent reporting from the Charlotte Observer. According to state law, because her passing occurred more than 30 days after the closing of the filing period, the race is not required to be reopened, and her opponent will advance to the general election, according to the director of the Cabarris County Board of Elections.
So, this is a very sad story that we are tracking this morning.
Some statements also coming in from her opponent in what would have been a Democrat primary coming up March the 3rd, saying, Over the last few months leading up to the primary, I'd had the opportunity to get to know her just be just a bit beyond the campaign, and I'm genuinely grateful for that, said Thomas Monks, her primary opponent. Kim was a loving, lovely person with a warm, generous heart, and she carried herself with kindness, sincerity, and grace. Republican State Representative Jonathan Allman currently holds the seat, representing the 73rd district here in North Carolina. Her family has established a fund to cover expenses, aiming to raise some $50,000, according to the latest donation tracking this morning. There's a little over $12,000 in that donation fund right now.
In part, it reads: Because of pre-existing medical conditions, Kim was unable to obtain life insurance, and our family is coming together to ensure that her children are supported and her life is honored. All donations will go towards funeral expenses and support Delaney's two children, who unfortunately this morning are without a mother. A very sad story here in North Carolina politics. We've got a link to that donation fund and some additional media reports from this report. This story, those details over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, with the story headline: Candidate for North Carolina House passes suddenly.
You're still grooving, still connecting, still loving, still turning up, still thriving. You still got it, but your immune system, it weakens as you age. That's where vaccines come in. They help train and strengthen your immune response to fight off respiratory illnesses like flu, pneumococcal pneumonia, RSV, or COVID-19. Ask your doctor or pharmacist which vaccines you need.
Book in minutes at vaccassist.com. Sponsored by Pfizer. It's 5:18. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 FM, WBT. I'm Nick Craig.
Good morning to you. Rounding out National School Week here on the Carolina Journal News Hour, we've got some brand new polling over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, that dives into a variety of education topics and issues across the state of North Carolina. To help walk us through some of that this morning, it's my pleasure to welcome Dr. Bob Lubke, who is the director of the Center for Effective Education at the John Locke Foundation to help us through some of these details this morning. Bob, as always, thanks for the time.
Let's start right off at the top here. The question was pretty simple. Overall, how satisfied are you with the quality of K through 12 education that students receive in today's public school? Less than 35% of respondents said they are satisfied with that. What do you make of that number?
Yeah, it's a disturbing number. If you look at dissatisfied and satisfied, it's about a 12% differential. On the dissatisfied side.
So, um, That's a little bit of an improvement from last year. The numbers dropped about seven or eight. Points down, which was good, but still. People are dissatisfied with their local schools. That poll reflects that.
And it's something. That people are working on. That's also propelling the school choice movement. Yeah, we'll get into the school choice. We've got some questions on that coming up a little bit later on in the poll.
Right after that, we followed up and asked them what they thought overall the satisfaction was with the K through 12 education across North Carolina as it relates to all public schools. Bob, that number's even lower. Less than 30% say they're satisfied with the overall public school system here in North Carolina. This appears to be a growing trend. Yes, we actually asked two questions on this satisfaction topic simply because.
Most people parse this question into um.
Well, I I can think of local my local public schools and I can think of schools in North Carolina in general. And it's you know, we've some of us have have heard of the Congress effect, you know, that people like their local congressmen. But they do not like the institution of Congress.
So I think that's somewhat applicable here. If you actually look at the numbers, There is dissatisfaction on the local level, as we just talked about, but the dissatisfaction, I call it a differential. At the uh statewide level is actually twice what it is at the local level. As far as numbers, It's a differential of about 12 points at the local level. At the statewide level, it's 24 points.
And that means basically this dissatisfaction. Is people that are dissatisfied, it's 53% of the population. People that are satisfied, that's 29%.
So that's a differential of about 24 points. There's a lot of dissatisfaction at at the statewide level.
Well, and let me ask you about this. Obviously, for parents and families that have kids in their local school system, they may or may not be happy with that. But when you look at the overall statewide conversation, which we're having right now, Bob, do you think some of this comes down to a lot of the negative conversation that is consistently taking place around public education? The General Assembly is always fighting about funding and more money needs to go to public schools. There's billboards on I-40 across North Carolina talking about raising teacher pay and helping the public school system.
Do you think some of that kind of ancillary conversation trickles in to people's overall opinions and feelings of public education across the Tar Heel State? Yes, no doubt. It can't help but. Uh and recently with no budget being passed and And the implications of that for public education, which are bad. I mean, there's no good things that come out of not having a budget.
And the fact that there's been wrangling on how to deliver services, that's always a big factor. Of public education, how much we're going to spend, what kind of return are we getting on that investment? North Carolina spends. About $18 billion on K-12 education. If you include state, federal, and local funds, that's a lot of money.
And if you look at what we just talked about, you know, overall satisfaction, people aren't happy. And you mentioned as it relates to people not being happy, looking at the school choice movement, that has also been a major topic, very political in some cases across North Carolina over the last couple of years. Bob, we do have a question about the Opportunity Scholarship Program. Before I go over the results of that, would you just give us a quick baseline of what is the OPS, the Opportunity Scholarship Program, across North Carolina for folks that are not familiar with what that is? Yeah, the Opportunity Scholarship Program is a program that has been in existence since about 2014.
Originally, it was targeted on low-income kids to be able to basically have another chance. To attend a private school, particularly in an area that didn't have. you know good uh public schools so It was a lifesaver in many instances, and the programs proved popular. It's constitutional. It was upheld in a court case in 2015.
The legislature has expanded it continually. Two years ago, Basically, made it a universal program, which means any family in North Carolina can apply for it. It's still primarily targeted on. On low-income kids, but the monies, which range from about $7,700 to about $3,600, are distributed in tiers. The higher amount of money would go f for lower income kids and the lower amounts of money go to higher income kids.
But everyone's eligible. It's the open The program opens up again for applications February one. Uh and Uh scholarships are distributed until the funding's Last year there were 104,000 kids. on scholarship. It's proving to be a very popular program.
And our polling data backs up the fact that it's very popular. The question was pretty basic. Do you support or oppose the opportunity scholarship program? Bob, 63.7% of voters in our most recent Carolina Journal poll support it. And the overwhelming majority, more than 40%, strongly support the program.
So maybe regardless of some of the social media chatter, some of the arguments that are taking place in the legislature where the rubber meets the road with families, with guardians, they seem to be very much in favor of this program. Yes, the program has proved consistently popular amongst the public, and I think some of the best ambassadors for it now are people that are in the program. As I said, there's 104,000 people in there, plus, there's alumni, et cetera. They're Getting to be quite a strong constituency. And as you look at the numbers from 2000.
from Jan our poll in January of 23 to January of 26. Um Numbers have dropped about 3.6% over those. The support for it, that's. You know, that's a little bit of a decline. If you go from year to year, some of those changes are within the margin of error.
You don't like to see a decline. But still it's above I mean, the number we got in January 26th was 63.7, which is a strong number. It's got consistent support amongst Republicans, Independents, Democrats across the board, and even with minorities.
So the program. Is popular. Um and You know, I I can only see uh good things ahead for it.
Now, we talk about the alternatives from your traditional public school using the Opportunity Scholarship Program to pay at least in part some private school tuition is an option. Another option, Bob, across the state of North Carolina are charter schools, which many folks I think have a preconceived notion are private. They are, in fact, not. They are considered part of the public school system across North Carolina. The question, there were some questions about charter school support.
Some pretty strong numbers there as well. 57.5% of voters support charter schools here in North Carolina. That seems to be also a viable alternative if public school maybe isn't working for you or your family. Yeah, that's correct, Nick. Charter schools are public schools.
A lot of people forget that. A lot of times people think that they're private, but their charter their charters are public that they're under the direction of an independent board, but they are Responsible for administering the state curricula and also administering the state tests and have to abide by most all academic testing for public schools. The only difference is if they're given more flexibility with teacher hirings and uh are charged with you know, bringing some more innovation to the classroom. But the the only other difference is And if the charters don't meet their Goals laid out in the charter, they're shut down. And a number of them have been shut down when they have failed, and we view that as a good thing.
Right now, there's about 200-plus charters in North Carolina, and they. They have about 127,000 kids in them, and they're flourishing. And if you look at our poll numbers, again, from the last three years. The actual support for them has dropped about 11 points. And those points have gone pretty much directly to Are those who oppose charters?
There's 11.3 decline in support, 11.3 Uh increase in people who oppose charters.
Now I don't want to oversell that, but it's a direction that Give some pause. Where does that come from? Um as I said uh Republican support for Charter is overwhelming. If you look at some of the crosstabs, 73% of Republicans support. Charter is only 16%.
Pose 55%. of independence Support chart is 37% opposed. But where it gets Different is amongst Democrats where that split is 45-45. And that's probably where some of the slippage has been coming. Democrats.
Have had a little bit of boost amongst charters in the last few years.
Some of that was attributed. To, I'd say, President Barack Obama, who actually was. Pro-charter in many ways. His Secretary of Education did a number of good things with regards to charters. And I think that boosted support amongst Democrats for charter schools.
And I think some of that has been dissipating over the last few years. We'll have more poll results with Dr. Bob Lubke from the John Locke Foundation coming up after this. You're listening to the Carolina Journal News Hour. It's 5:35 on Charlotte's FM News Talk 107.9 WBT, and it's time for David Chadwick's moment of hope.
If you want to be successful in life, here is another tip that has really helped me and I hope it does you as well. Believe everything better than when you found it. Simple truth. Leave everything better. then you found it.
So that means that when you get to work and everything's in order, at the end of the day, it's a little bit disordered.
Well, leave work making sure that everything is as good as it was when you came in that morning. It suggests neatness, it suggests order, it suggests discipline, and it shows that you are on top of things. You can't expect other people to do it if you don't do it, especially if you're a leader.
So let me tell you one more time, if you want success in life, leave everything better than you found it. And when you do so, you're saying tons about yourself and leadership to those following you. I'm David Chadwick with this moment of hope. Moments of Hope are brought to you by Perry's Diamonds and Estate Jewelry, the Southeast Premier Diamond and Estate Jewelry since 1978. Usually there's nothing worse than being stuck in a jam on your way home.
Unless you're listening to WBT. Because you've got Pam the Jam Warner to help keep you moving. All right, Charlotte, looking good on the roadways if you're headed out for that early lunch rush.
So of course we're going to see some slowdowns in our usual hot spots. I'm on a diamond with you. WBT traffic making that afternoon jam something to look forward to. Hope you like diamond too. 537, welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT, I'm Nick Craig.
Good Friday morning to you. Continuing with coverage of our most recent CarolinaJournal.com poll, heavily focusing on education here as part of National School Choice Week across the state of North Carolina, Dr. Bob Lubke from the John Locke Foundation joins us. Coming up later this year across many municipalities in North Carolina, there will be elections taking place. Obviously, we've continued to talk about the U.S.
Senate and congressional races, but very important local elections will also be happening, Bob, including in many cases, re-electing or electing new members to your local board of education. There was an interesting question in our poll over at CarolinaJournal.com as it relates to should the board of education at the statewide level, should that be an elected board or an appointed board? Interestingly enough, almost 60% of the board. 68% of individuals think that all members, all 13 members of the north of the state North Carolina Board of Education should in fact be elected by the people not appointed by the governor, who of course right now happens to be a Democrat. Yeah, that's an interesting finding.
We polled on that last year, and the number was. About it was about 63%. This year is 68%.
So it's up about. Five percent in one year. The thing that's amazing about it is just again. The wide support the initiative has amongst different groups. Amongst Republicans, 75% support independents, 70%.
Democrats, 58%. Even regional distributions are very supportive. Charlotte, 71%. Central North Carolina, 63. Raleigh, Durham, 67%.
Coastal Carolina, 66%.
So it's. You know, amongst whites, 70%, blacks, 58%. all positive along all income levels.
So it's one of those rare initiatives where you get strong support across all categories or many categories. And I think in part that's because People want to vote on things. If you say, would you like to have an input into this and something as important as education? I think most people would say yes. About a year ago, a piece of legislation Actually, calling for something similar to this was floated by, I believe it was Representative Blackwell.
Where I was calling for a constitutional amendment to elect members of the state board. I think it got, it didn't get a floor hearing, but it was introduced at least.
So I'm sure he'll see these numbers and we'll see what happens.
Well, and I think, Bob, this kind of goes back to where we started the interview with that original first question. Are you satisfied with what's going on with public education across the state? As we mentioned, less than 30% of people are right now. And I guess we talk about accountability a lot here on the program. There's nothing more accountable than an elected official who is up on a ballot every two, four or six years, depending on their term.
That's correct. And I think that's why people are You know, feel strongly about this amendment as they do. It allows them, they have input into something as important and as personal as public education. Here's another interesting question that caught my eye is school type preference. If money was no object, which we know obviously is a major topic when it comes to private school and things of that nature.
However, if money was no object and you could choose any type of school for your child, what type of school would you choose? 44.5% of respondents to our poll, Bob, said that they would go private school all the way. Kind of goes back to some of those original questions. There's a lot of support for alternative education here in North Carolina. Yeah, we've run this question, I think, just about every year since I've been here, and the numbers are pretty much.
stable. Two-thirds, about a third or a little less than a third for public school. And if you combine private, charter, and homeschool, it usually comes to about two-thirds. Here it's It's about 64-65%. uh for private charter and home school and thirty percent for public So, um If you give people an option, at least we're showing here.
that people want choices. And right now the way most Districts are are laid out, people don't have them. I did find a couple of numbers interesting in this as well. You mentioned homeschooling. 10.5% of people said that they would choose homeschooling, which seems to me to be a pretty large number.
Virtual schooling, which is obviously relatively new. We're starting to see that come online in some other states. That ticked up a little bit in this poll as well.
So there are even more alternatives outside of your traditional private school, charter school, or public school in North Carolina. Yeah, there are options. I didn't we didn't mean to imply um It's limited to this three. Why we use private Charter and home school is generally we can get the most accurate numbers with them. There are other options like magnet schools, which are public school, oftentimes schools within public schools.
Then there are Like College programs within high schools, but the numbers, getting the numbers on there. are It's just more difficult to get hard, accurate numbers on that.
So, we try to stick to what we can reliably. Count on a year-to-year basis. That doesn't mean it's the entire universe, but by and large, the programs that we mentioned are probably the largest within that array. We've already made the case and laid out the numbers pretty clearly that the public education system in North Carolina is facing some pretty strong opposition, some pretty strong dissatisfaction. We asked that question, in your opinion, what are the most challenging issues facing K through 12 public education?
A couple of the top issues, Bob, lack of high quality educators in the classroom, finances, monetary issues taking place as well, and then academic standards. Those kind of rule out the top three issues here in our poll. Those all seem to be pretty valid concerns and are probably driving some of those public school satisfaction numbers way down. Yeah. Uh actually the answers to that question Uh the The order Or the numbers didn't surprise me.
They kind of fell where I thought they'd fall. Uh because This mirrors what's been going on statewide. As far as the drumbeat on the need for high-quality teachers, obviously financing has been a topic that doesn't go away. the quest for good academic standards. is a never-ending project, et cetera.
So none of that surprises me. I mean the question is always Um digging into each one of those areas and successfully delivering. The issues are there, the public realizes the issues are there, they're important, and You know, being able to tackle them. and get them kind of off the board, you know, is is the task. A couple of interesting numbers.
One of the issues that you see a lot, especially in local campaigns, as I mentioned, Board of Education seats will be coming up all across all 100 counties in North Carolina this year. Bob, only 7% of people said that they were worried about school safety, which I found to be interesting because that does seem to be a very popular, easy talking point for elected officials and those running on both sides of the political aisle. Yet, if we're using some of this data, we would find out it's really not that big of an issue for the vast majority of voters. Yeah, I think um I don't know, that's a little lower than I thought it would be too, but Every issue has a shelf life. Sure.
Uh and it's on the four it's on the front burner. For a while, and then it recedes a little bit. I think that's kind of what happened to school safety. Not that it's not important, I think it still is. In fact, Anecdotally, if you ask the majority of charity school, parents Why they transferred to a charter school, and I think this is still true.
The majority of them say not academics, but it's. The safety of their children that has motivated that change.
So that's still in the forefront. of parents uh in their minds I think some of this I think is the evolution of of the issue and the ebb and flow of time with it.
Well, speaking of the ebb and flow of time, this was one of the questions in our poll that maybe had the largest amount of people agree to the same thing. We talked about COVID-19. Let's roll the clocks back four or five years, Bob. How much impact did COVID-19 school shutdowns from 2020 to 2021 have on student achievement in North Carolina? How about this?
82.6% of people said it had a negative impact. That is overwhelmingly the largest plurality of any issue in our poll here. Yeah, that's right. In fact, that number is astonishing. What's also astonishing is if you look at the intensity, 62%.
Felt very strongly about it. That's a very high percentage of intense opinion.
So, I mean, that's not good. Most people felt like The shutdown had very negative effects. on the schools and our school children.
So, um What do we do with that? What do we learn from it? How do we Get kids back on track. Um that's something that we really have to A dress. you know, uh effectively and You know, it's a problem.
I mean. What about what was it, 5%? Of the population felt they had minimal or no impact. And actually, if we give the full results, 1.6%. of respondents said they had a positive impact.
I'd like to meet those people. But I mean, North Carolina, as I say, and I harp on this all the time, we spent $6.2 billion. on it. And I think we get into that. We laid that out in I think in the next question.
But uh we shut down schools. And The motivation might have been right, but I thought the reasoning was wrong. And in the long run, we really set kids back. And we have to take responsibility for that and make sure that we give them everything possible. to make sure to get them back on track academically.
Yeah, and you know, obviously it's a little bit easier to make up for some of that learning loss for students that were maybe in kindergarten, first or second grade, Bob, that were just kind of coming into the school system. You have a little bit longer runway to deal with them. But you look at middle school and high schoolers in and around 2020 and 2021, many of them completely missed out on very pivotal and important years in their public education or private education journey.
Some big time issues there. You teed up this final question that we're going to go through about the COVID-19 funds. There was copious amounts of money from the federal government flowing into seemingly every governmental entity during 2020, 2021, and 2022. You mentioned that $6.2 billion worth of federal money. People don't seem to think that necessarily all that shook out well as well.
Yeah, 45% uh felt that North Carolina did a poor job. of spending that money for COVID relief. About 20% thought North Carolina did a good job. About 13% neither and about 22% were unsure. But that's a pretty high number for um Thinking that we did a poor job of distributing all that money.
I did lay out, we did lay out in the question. you know, where basically that money went to and Those numbers are from forms that each school district has to fill out. basically how they expended the funds. What I thought also was interesting, and I talk about this all the time, was but was that the money for Tutoring, which has been long recognized as the most effective remedy. For for um Connoring learning loss.
We only spend about 2% of funds for that.
So How we spend the money. Is oftentimes as important or more important as how much money we spend. You can read additional details from our most recent Carolina Journal poll as part of National School Choice Week over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. We appreciate the insight and analysis this morning. Dr.
Bob Lubke joins us on the Carolina Journal News Hour. You're still grooving, still connecting, still loving, still turning up, still thriving. You still got it. But your immune system, it weakens as you age. That's where vaccines come in.
They help train and strengthen your immune response to fight off respiratory illnesses like flu, pneumococcal pneumonia, RSV, or COVID-19. Ask your doctor or pharmacist which vaccines you need. Book in minutes at vaxassist.com. Sponsored by Pfizer. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour.
It's 5:55 on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT. All 100 counties across the state of North Carolina are under a winter storm warning as the state is expecting a second weekend of winter weather across North Carolina. According to the latest from the governor's mansion, a state of emergency has once again been declared. This is the second in the span of just two weeks that the governor has declared as what we were expecting, a devastating ice storm. Fortunately, it did not materialize last weekend, unless you were in the absolute westernmost portions of North Carolina.
More sleet than ice kept some of those totals down.
However, widespread snow totals expected across North Carolina this weekend, between four, eight, even 12 plus inches of snow in some areas as a low-pressure system is set to plant itself right off the coast of North Carolina. Carolina starting about midday tomorrow is when the low is really set to take place. That is going to dump snow on most of North Carolina. There are some blizzard warnings and blizzard conditions that could be expected in the outer banks as well. As folks there could be looking at 40, 50, even maybe 60 mile an hour wind gusts with this low pressure system, this bomb cyclone type system that could bring as much as tropical storm force winds to the entire east coast of North Carolina.
Some of those wind gusts even pushing a little bit further inland as well.
So not only are the conditions already going to be treacherous with a pretty significant snow event, you'll likely see some blowing snow, especially in the easternmost portions of North Carolina as well. The governor is reporting that DOT crews have once again been working around the clock to get the roads prepped. Brining operations continuing this week. They will continue today as well ahead of that very significant snowfall total that we are expecting. Expecting this weekend.
We'll have continued coverage of that throughout the weekend. You can read more about the governor's disaster declaration or the emergency declaration, I should say, this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. That's going to do it for a Friday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour. WBT News is next, followed by Good Morning, BT. Have a safe weekend.
We're back with you Monday morning, 5 to 6, right here on Charlotte's FM News Talk, 107.9 FM, WBT. Let's go! You're still grooving, still connecting, still loving, still turning up, still thriving. You still got it, but your immune system, it weakens as you age. That's where vaccines come in.
They help train and strengthen your immune response to fight off respiratory illnesses like flu, pneumococcal pneumonia, RSV, or COVID-19. Ask your doctor or pharmacist which vaccines you need. Book in minutes at vaccassist.com. Sponsored by Pfizer. Mm-hmm.
