Nearly 40 million expected to travel

Some drivers faced flooded roads and high winds in the South.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Long lines formed at airports well before daybreak Wednesday, and some drivers in the South saw winter hit the roads early as millions of Americans made the annual dash home for Thanksgiving.
The AAA estimated that 38.3 million people would travel 50 miles or more for Thanksgiving -- up a million from last year.
Moderating gas prices may be one reason for the increase, said the automobile association's Robert Sinclair.
Since peaking above 3 per gallon in early August, gasoline pump prices have dropped by around 80 cents per gallon nationwide in the past three months. Wednesday's nationwide average gas price was 2.23 a gallon, according to AAA.
Thanksgiving air travel was expected to surge, too. AAA predicted 4.8 million travelers will fly to their Thanksgiving destination. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey anticipated 1.6 million passengers -- about 2 percent more than last year -- would pass through LaGuardia, John F. Kennedy International and Newark Liberty International airports.
By early afternoon Wednesday, arrivals at LaGuardia and Newark were late an average of an hour because of bad weather in other parts of the country, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority.
Traffic was moving smoothly at several other major airports, including the world's busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
"I expected it to be a lot worse than it is, but the day is still young," said Steve Miller as he waited for relatives arriving from Fort Myers, Fla.
What others faced
At Boston's Logan International Airport, wait times at security checkpoints were averaging less than 10 minutes and there were no long lines at ticket counters at midday.
Drivers in parts of North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia faced high winds and flooded roads Wednesday as an early winter storm swept across the South.
The weather slowed traffic between the Carolinas on Interstate 95, one of the main arteries for East Coast travel. Some ferry service along North Carolina's coast was halted on Wednesday because of the storm; the state Department of Transportation said it would likely not resume until Thanksgiving Day.
In Virginia, a tunnel between Norfolk and Portsmouth was shut down because of high water, and high winds prompted operators of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel to limit vehicles crossing the span to cars and pickup trucks.
Motorists along Interstate 40, an east-west highway that spans more than 2,500 miles, were seeing more than just fall colors along the route: State troopers will be posted every 10 miles.
The coordinated effort between state police in the eight states the highway passes through -- California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina -- is aimed at reducing accidents and fatalities Wednesday and today.
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