A fearsome winter storm continued to pummel parts of the US with blizzard conditions on Saturday night after powerful Arctic winds left nearly 1.7 million people without power earlier in the day and caused Christmas travel nightmares.
At least 17 weather-related deaths have been confirmed across eight states as heavy snow, howling winds and dangerously frigid temperatures kept much of the nation, including the normally temperate south, in a frozen grip for a third straight day.
In hard-hit New York state, Governor Kathy Hochul deployed the National Guard to Erie County and its main city Buffalo, where authorities said emergency services were not functioning.
Photo: Kevin Hoak / Reuters
Late on Saturday, the US National Weather Service said that blizzard conditions in the Great Lakes region caused by lake-effect snow would continue yesterday, and that there would be “only slow moderation of temperatures into Monday [today].”
One couple in Buffalo, which sits across the border from Canada, said that with the roads completely impassible, they would not be making a 10-minute drive to see their family for Christmas.
“It’s tough because the conditions are just so bad ... a lot of fire departments aren’t even sending out trucks for calls,” 40-year-old Rebecca Bortolin said.
The “bomb cyclone” winter storm, one of the fiercest in decades, had already forced the cancelation of more than 3,300 US flights on Saturday and the delay of nearly 7,500 more, a day after nearly 6,000 were scrapped, according to tracking Web site Flightaware.com.
US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg wrote on Twitter that “the most extreme disruptions are behind us as airline and airport operations gradually recover” — words that travelers stranded at airports including Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Detroit and New York were holding on to.
Road ice and white-out conditions also led to the closure of some of the nation’s busiest transport routes, including the cross-country Interstate 70, parts of which were temporarily shut down in Colorado and Kansas.
At one point during the day, nearly 1.7 million customers were without electricity, tracker poweroutage.us showed.
Canadian authorities have also issued severe weather warnings. Hundreds of thousands were left without power in Ontario and Quebec provinces, while many flights were canceled in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.
VIA Rail, Canada’s passenger service, said that all trains from Toronto to Ottawa and Montreal would be suspended on Christmas Day due to a train derailment, while “extreme weather conditions” forced many other cancelations.
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