[Bakhtiar:] Welcome back, everyone. Much of the southeast is in a deep freeze, paralyzed by a winter storm that has coated everything in a sheet of ice. The freezing rain and sleet moving into the region last night and continues through today. At least 2 traffic deaths in Georgia are being blamed on the ice storm. Sara Dorsey has more on these treacherous conditions.
[Sara Dorsey, Cnn Correspondent:] Icy, wintry weather bears down on the Southeast, making for a beautiful picture, but a mess if you're out in it. Ice scrapers became a necessity. And some Georgia drivers learned snow tires would have come in handy, too.
[Unidentified Male:] I was driving down the street. I was driving normally and all of a sudden, I went to lightly put my foot on the brake and all of a sudden, the car just started skidding, and I couldn't stop it.
[Dorsey:] Sixteen cars crunched in this pile-up in the Atlanta suburb of Lawrenceville. Some stretches of interstate in and out of metro Atlanta closed, backing up traffic for miles. Those that were actually moving were doing it at a snails pace. Waiting is the name of the game today on the roads and at the airport. Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International is open, but passengers are stranded because of canceled and delayed flights.
[Unidentified Male:] We actually got a rental car in this whole time, but we can't go anywhere. I'm supposed to be in Savannah, Georgia, at 2:00 for a wedding and it looks like I'm not going to make it.
[Dorsey:] For snow-starved kids, though, the wintry mix was a delight, even welcomed.
[Unidentified Male:] I thought it was crazy,
[Dorsey:] Sara Dorsey, CNN, Atlanta.
[Bakhtiar:] Conditions in some parts of the southeast are expected to get even worse, as freezing rain and sleet continue to fall there. CNN's Orelon Sidney is live at the weather center with the latest information for us. Orelon, give us some good news, please.
[Orelon Sidney, Cnn Meteorologist:] I have got some good news for you. As a matter of fact, the freezing rain is going to be ending across Alabama and Georgia as we go on through these evening hours. That's good, because it means you won't get too much additional accumulation. It's not as good, because of course what's on the ground is going to freeze tonight as the temperatures remain below freezing. Tonight though, we're most concerned with far northeastern Georgia extending up through the southern Appalachian Mountains and then right up into the Carolinas. That's where the heaviest freezing rain is expected. The area in pink is where you see the transition between the rain in the blue, and the snow in the white. That's the most dangerous part. You can see it now breaking up around the Atlanta suburbs, right on the borner line there at Augusta. And then continuing up through Raleigh. You could see again as much of a quarter to a half inch accumulation tonight, mainly right along that swath that we talked about. There is more good news, though, it is going be much better by tomorrow. The area of low pressure is going to form across the Carolina coast, and actually start to pull in some warmer and even some dryer air across the south, so the clouds will be breaking up. It's still going to be cold, probably highs in the 40s in Atlanta tomorrow, much of the action, though, is going to shift northward. And the ice area, that little pink line that I drew there, is going to be much less extensive than it has been over the weekend. Something else going on, another disturbance out to the west now causing some showers and thunderstorms south of Interstate 10. We do have a tornado warning in effect to the south of Phoenix northeast of Phoenix, that's this thunderstorm here. It's moving southeast at 25. Some good news there, it's in a rural area expected to remain there, that warning in effect under the bottom of the hour. So for tonight, more snow with the low pressure system out to the west. More rain, more snow, more ice across the east. Cloudy skies in between, but tomorrow, there it is, it gets a bit better. Our eastern storm starts to make its way off the coast. But here comes this one. It's going to move across Texas into the Gulf of Mexico by Monday, but it's going to shoot straight across and head on into the Atlantic. Not looking for any more icing with that second system Rudi.
[Bakhtiar:] That doesn't sound like good news, Orelon.
[Sidney:] It could be worse. We could get another shot of ice, but it's not going to happen.
[Bakhtiar:] All right. Thank you, Orelon Sidney.
[Sidney:] You're welcome.
[Bakhtiar:] Well, with the start of the voting in Iraq, less than seven hours away, security is the top priority for coalition and Iraqi forces. Straight ahead, Major General Don Shepperd and what it's going to take to secure the elections in the face of a violent insurgency. Also,
[Cooper:] We're stuck in a traffic jam, it seems. It seems like a traffic jam, which is such an ordinary occurrence, all of a sudden it's a security threat, because someone could just come up along side the vehicle, another car could slam right into you, you're sort of a sitting duck.
[Bakhtiar:] Anderson Cooper and the dangerous road to Baghdad, coming up.