One of the worst weather disasters in the history of the United States of America has claimed more lives in the last 24 hours taking the death toll to 27 in New York's Buffalo area alone. 48 deaths have been recorded across the nation. Some people lost their lives while shoveling snow while some were found dead in their cars. Rescue and recovery efforts have been going on for some days now.
The National Weather Service said Monday that up to 9 more inches of snow could fall in some areas through Tuesday. The blizzard roared through western New York Friday and Saturday, stranding motorists, knocking out power and preventing emergency crews from reaching residents in frigid homes and stuck cars.
The bomb cyclone roared through western New York Friday and Saturday, stranding motorists, knocking out power and preventing emergency crews from reaching residents in frigid homes and stuck cars. Huge snowdrifts nearly covered cars Monday and thousands of houses, some adorned in unlit holiday displays, have been dark from a lack of power. The massive storm is expected to claim more lives because it trapped some residents inside houses.
Hundreds of flights remain cancelled
Extreme weather stretched from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60% of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians.
Some 2,085 domestic and international flights were canceled on Monday as of about noon EDT, according to the tracking site FlightAware. The site said Southwest Airlines had 1,253 cancellations — nearly a third of its scheduled flights and about five times as many as any other major U.S. carrier. An email sent to Southwest was not immediately returned and the Dallas-based airline hadn’t updated its website about the conditions since Saturday.
Some 2,085 domestic and international flights were canceled on Monday as of about noon EDT, according to the tracking site FlightAware. The site said Southwest Airlines had 1,253 cancellations — nearly a third of its scheduled flights and about five times as many as any other major U.S. carrier. An email sent to Southwest was not immediately returned and the Dallas-based airline hadn’t updated its website about the conditions since Saturday.
Based on FlightAware data, airports all across the U.S. were suffering from cancellations and delays, including Denver, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Seattle, Baltimore and Chicago. Relief is coming this week, though, with forecasts calling for temperatures to slowly rise, said Ashton Robinson Cook, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
“Nothing like what we had last week,” said adding that the bomb cyclone has weakened. It developed near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions, including heavy winds and snow. New York Governor Kathy Hochul said almost every fire truck in Buffalo was stranded Saturday and she implored people Sunday to respect an ongoing driving ban in the region. The National Weather Service said the snow total at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport stood at 49.2 inches (1.25 meters) at 7 a.m. Sunday. Officials said the airport would be shut through Tuesday morning.
People suffer due to frigid weather conditions
Buffalo police said Sunday evening that there were two “isolated” instances of looting during the storm. Two people died in their suburban Cheektowaga, New York, homes Friday when emergency crews could not reach them in time to treat their medical conditions. Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said 10 more people died there during the storm, including six in Buffalo, and warned there may be more dead.
“Some were found in cars, some were found on the street in snowbanks,” Poloncarz said. “We know there are people who have been stuck in cars for more than two days.” Freezing conditions and power outages had Buffalonians scrambling to get to anywhere with heat amid what Hochul called the longest sustained blizzard conditions ever in the city.
In a nearby home, Shahida Muhammad told WKBW that she had a desperate weekend after an outage knocked out power to her 1-year-old son’s ventilator. She and the child’s father manually administered breaths from Friday until Sunday when rescuers saw her desperate social media posts and came to their aid.
Erie County officials said they went to the family’s home Saturday but that no one came to the door. Muhammad said they were there but thankfully her son was doing well despite the ordeal. She described him as “a fighter.” The storm knocked out power in communities from Maine to Seattle. The mid-Atlantic grid operator had called for its 65 million consumers to conserve energy amid the freeze Saturday.
Storm-related deaths were reported all over the country, from six motorists killed in crashes in Missouri, Kansas and Kentucky to a woman who fell through Wisconsin river ice and a deadly Kansas homeless campfire. In Jackson, Mississippi, city officials on Christmas Day announced residents must now boil their drinking water due to water lines bursting in the frigid temperatures.
(With inputs from AP)
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