BUFFALO, NY (AP) — A severe winter storm knocked out power to 1.7 million homes and businesses across the United States on Saturday, leaving millions more to worry about the prospect of further outages and paralyze police, firefighters and an airport in the snow. blew up New York State.
Authorities nationwide have attributed at least a dozen deaths to exposure, icy car crashes and other effects of the storm, including two people who died at their homes outside Buffalo, New York. , when emergency crews were unable to reach them amid the historic snowstorm.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said Saturday that Buffalo Niagara International Airport would be closed until Monday morning, some roads would be closed until Christmas Day and nearly all of Buffalo’s fire trucks were stuck in the snow.
“No matter how many emergency vehicles we have, they can’t get through the conditions as we speak,” Hochul said.
Blinding blizzards, freezing rain and freezing cold also knocked out power from Maine to Seattle, while a major electric grid operator warned the 65 million people it serves in the eastern United States that power outages may be necessary.
Pennsylvania-based PJM Interconnection said power plants were struggling to operate in freezing weather and asked residents in 13 states to refrain from using electricity unnecessarily. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides electricity to 10 million people in Tennessee and parts of six surrounding states, on Saturday ordered local power companies to implement planned outages to “ensure the reliability of the electrical system”.
Chris Muenks said he and his cats woke up Saturday morning to a cold house in Greeneville, Tennessee. Power returned, he said, only to resume mid-morning in a planned blackout.
“I am disappointed with my electricity network. It feels like a kick in the stomach,” Muenks said. “I understand the storms and I understand the wind, but I don’t understand ‘I don’t have enough power’.”
Nearly 400,000 electric customers across the six New England states were left without power Saturday morning, with some utilities warning it could be days before power is restored. In North Carolina, nearly 370,000 customers were without power, according to poweroutage.us. PJM Interconnection – which covers all or part of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, DC – also warned that power outages may be needed.
In the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga, two people died in their homes on Friday when emergency crews were unable to reach them in time to treat their medical emergencies, according to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.
“This could turn out to be the worst storm in our community’s history,” Poloncarz said Saturday morning. “There are still probably hundreds of people trapped in vehicles.”
Poloncarz said there is no emergency service available in Buffalo and several populated communities surrounding it because many emergency vehicles are stuck in snow. He said a doctor needed to talk to a woman and her pregnant sister during the delivery of the sister’s baby.
“That’s not to say attempts aren’t being made, but there’s no guarantee that in a life-threatening emergency they’ll be able to respond immediately,” Poloncarz said.
Hochul announced plans Friday night to deploy 54 National Guard members to the region.
On the Ohio Turnpike, four died in a massive pileup involving about 50 vehicles in a Kansas City, Missouri, driver was killed Thursday after skidding in a creek, and three others died Wednesday in separate crashes on icy roads in northern Kansas.
A Vermont woman died in a hospital on Friday after a tree snapped in high winds and fell on her. Colorado Springs police say they found the body of a person who appeared to be homeless as sub-zero temperatures and snow fell in the area.
Adding to the woes were power outages that as of early Saturday still affected more than 1.7 million homes and businesses, according to the PowerOutage website, which tracks utility reports.
The storm was nearly unprecedented in its magnitude, stretching 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 dropped significantly below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to Appalachia, the National Weather Service said. .
Freezing rain blanketed much of the Pacific Northwest in a layer of ice, while people in the northeast were threatened with coastal and inland flooding.
Freezing temperatures and gusty winds were expected to produce “a dangerously cold wind chill across much of the central and eastern United States this holiday weekend,” the weather service said, adding that the conditions ” will create a life-threatening hazard to travelers who become stranded.”
With millions of Americans traveling ahead of Christmas, more than 5,700 flights within, to or from the United States were canceled on Friday, according to tracking site FlightAware. while in Mexico, migrants camp near the US border in unusually cold temperatures as they awaited a US Supreme Court ruling on pandemic-era restrictions that are preventing many from seeking asylum.
Forecasters said a bomb cyclone – when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly during a strong storm – had developed near the Great Lakes, causing blizzard conditions including high winds and snow.
Even people in Florida were prepared for unusually cold weather as rare frost warnings were issued for large parts of the state over the holiday weekend.
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Bleiberg reported from Dallas. Associated Press reporter Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Corey Williams in Southfield, Michigan; John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia; Maysoon Khan in Albany, New York; and Hannah Schoenbaum in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed to this report.
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