Extreme weather: ‘Bomb cyclone’ kills 32 in the US as millions freeze in the darkness
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: A relentless and brutal winter storm that brought Christmas chaos to millions of Americans will dissipate only slowly, the US National Weather Service (NWS) said on Monday, after intense snow and frigid cold caused power outages, travel delays, and at least 32 deaths across the eastern part of the country.
Last week, when the weather office warned of a ‘bomb cyclone, on Christmas eve, thousands of flights were canceled across the US as temperatures plummeted.
“Much of the eastern US will remain in a deep freeze through Monday before a moderating trend sets in on Tuesday,” the NWS said in its latest advisory.
In Buffalo, western New York, a blizzard left the city marooned, with emergency services unable to reach the worst-hit areas, the media reported.
“It is (like) going to a war zone, and the vehicles along the sides of the roads are shocking,” said New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a native Buffalo, where eight-foot (2.4-meter) snow drifts and power outages made for life-threatening conditions.
Residents were still in the throes of a “very dangerous life-threatening situation,” she said and warned anyone in the area to remain indoors.
More than 200,000 people across several eastern states woke up without power on Christmas morning and many more had their holiday travel plans upended, although the five-day-long storm featuring blizzard conditions and ferocious winds showed signs of easing.
The extreme weather sent wind chill temperatures in all 48 contiguous US states below freezing over the weekend, stranded holiday travelers with thousands of flights canceled, and trapped residents in ice- and snow-encrusted homes.
At least 32 weather-related deaths were confirmed across nine states, including 13 in Erie County where Buffalo is located, with officials warning the number could rise.
The snow-prone Buffalo region was among the worst-hit, with hours-long whiteouts and bodies discovered in vehicles and under snow banks as emergency workers struggled to search for those in need of rescue.
The city’s international airport remains closed until Tuesday and a driving ban remained in effect for all of Erie County.
About the ‘blizzard of 22’, Hochul said its brutality had surpassed the region’s prior landmark snowstorm of 1977 in the “intensity, the longevity, the ferocity of the winds.”
Due to frozen electric substations, some residents were not expected to regain power until Tuesday, with one substation reportedly buried under 18 feet of snow.
The NWS earlier warned that blizzard conditions in western New York’s Great Lakes region had continued into Sunday, with “additional snow accumulations of 2 to 3 feet through (Sunday night).”
The storm forced the cancellation of nearly 3,000 US flights on Sunday, in addition to some 3,500 scrapped Saturday and nearly 6,000 Friday, according to tracking website Flightaware.com. Over 1,000 US flights had already been canceled just hours into Monday.
Travelers remained stranded or delayed at airports throughout Christmas Day including at major hubs in Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, and New York.
Road ice and white-out conditions also led to the temporary closure of some of the nation’s busiest transport routes. Drivers were being warned not to take to the roads, even as the nation reached what is usually its busiest time of year for travel.
The extreme weather has severely taxed electricity grids, with multiple power providers urging millions of people to reduce usage to minimize rolling blackouts in places like North Carolina and Tennessee.
On Saturday, nearly 1.7 million customers were without electricity in the biting cold. The figure dropped by Sunday night, although over 50,000 customers in eastern states still lacked power.
