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President Joe Biden praised a young girl for ‘working it’ during his visit to Children’s National Hospital on Friday while Jill Biden read from The Snowy Day.
‘You are so cute, little tyke. You can tell she’s working it,’ he said, appearing to be speaking to a 21-month-year-old seated on her mother’s lap.
The visit includes a private meeting with patients and the reading of a Christmas-related tale in front of a giant Christmas tree.
Jill even noted there was snowfall that day as a bomb cyclone hit the Midwest, grounded thousands of flights and left nearly one-and-a-half million homes without power. Washington D.C. got a small burst of flurries as a cold snap moved through.
President Joe Biden helps hold up The Snow Day as first lady Jill Biden reads to sick children at Children’s National Hospital in Washington D.C.
‘You are so cute, little tyke. You can tell she’s working it,’ President Joe Biden told a little girl in the crowd at the hospital
‘How many of you have made snow angels?’ she said. ‘I loved to do that.’
It was the second year in a row President Biden joined Jill Biden on her visit to the children’s hospital. First ladies have been visiting Washington D.C.’s premiere hospital for sick kids for more than 75 years, going back to Bess Truman.
Jill Biden read The Snowy Day – a children’s story about a boy named Peter and his adventures in the snow. It’s the 60th anniversary of the book, written by Ezra Jack Keats.
President Biden helped hold up the book so the kids could see the pictures while Jill read from it.
‘That’s my job,’ he joked of his role.
He shook hands with a few of the kids in the room for the reading. There were about 20 of them present.
Five-year-old Miles, in a very sharp green suit, escorted Jill Biden into the event
Patients and their families listen to first lady Jill Biden reading The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
President Joe Biden shakes hands with one of children during the visit
10-year-old Aubrey escorted President Joe Biden into the room
The Bidens also met privately with patients and staff, spending about an hour at the hospital.
The first family is spending Christmas at the White House so, unlike a lot of Americans, they won’t be trying to travel when nearly two thirds of the United States is under a winter weather alert.
Snow has caused thousands of flight cancelations ahead of the busiest weekend of the year. The latest figures from FlightAware said 3,100 flights were canceled for Friday alone, following the grounding of thousands more on Thursday.
More than 10,000 flights were also delayed by the weather and the knock-on effect is likely to mean the chaos continues once the storm has passed.
People were also warned against traveling by road, as the icy conditions and powerful winds turn highways and freeways into potential deathtraps.
Some 200 million Americans – about 60 per cent of the population – are under some form of winter weather advisory as subfreezing chills and power outages are set to disappoint those scrambling to be with loved ones over Christmas.
PARADISE VALLEY, MONTANA: Mist rises about ice flows on the Yellowstone River as it froze over in the record weather
MANDAN, NORTH DAKOTA: Rows of headstones at the North Dakota Veterans Cemetery are blanketed by drifting snow
CHICAGO: A jogger runs along the snow-covered shoreline of Lake Michigan at sunrise ahead of the Christmas Holiday, on December 23, 2022, in Chicago.
Hard-freeze warnings were posted across the Gulf Coast states of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida, while significant icing was possible from a separate arctic blast hitting the Pacific Northwest.
The horrendous conditions have also caused inevitable delays to last-minute parcel deliveries. FedEx said it experienced ‘substantial disruptions’ at hubs in Memphis and Indianapolis. UPS said deliveries and pickups at hubs in Louisville, Kentucky and Rockford, Illinois, were impacted.
By late Thursday, most of the Lower 48 states, from Washington state to Florida, were under wind-chill alerts, blizzard warnings or other winter weather advisories.
Strong winds across the country saw powerlines down with the highest number of outages seen in Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana, according to poweroutage.us.
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