18 die as monster storm brings rain, snow, cold across US

Buffalo, New York — A frigid winter storm swept across the country, killing at least 18 people, powering out hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses, and leaving millions uneasy about the prospect of power outages on Christmas Eve. .

The storm raged through Buffalo, New York, with hurricane-force winds causing whiteout conditions. Emergency response efforts were paralyzed and the city’s international airport was closed.

Officials across the country are citing deaths from storm exposure, car crashes, falling tree branches and other effects. At least three of his people have died in the Buffalo area, two of whom received emergency medical care at home, unable to be saved after paramedics failed to reach their homes during a historic blizzard.

Deep snow, single-digit temperatures and a day-long power outage forced Buffalo residents to flee their homes on Saturday to a hot spot. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the Buffalo Niagara International Airport was closed until Monday morning, with nearly every fire truck in the city stuck in the snow.

“No amount of emergency vehicles can survive the situation we are talking about,” Ho-chul said.

Dizzying blizzards, freezing rains and frigid cold weather have caused power outages in areas from Maine to Seattle, forcing major power grid operators to shut down the 65 million people they serve in the eastern United States. We warned that rolling blackouts might be required.

Pennsylvania-based PJM Interconnection said frigid weather is making power plants difficult to operate, and is asking residents in 13 states to save electricity until at least Christmas morning. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which supplies power to some of the 10 million He’s in the state and six surrounding He’s neighborhoods, directed local power companies to implement planned power outages Saturday. The measures were finished by the afternoon of . A planned power outage delayed the start of the NFL’s Tennessee Titans game in Nashville by an hour.

More than 273,000 customers in six New England states remained without power on Saturday, with Maine hit hardest and some utilities saying it could take days for power to be restored. says that there is

In North Carolina, 169,000 customers were without power as of the afternoon, down from a peak of more than 485,000, but utility officials said rolling blackouts are expected to continue “in the next few days.” “It will continue.”

Those without power included James Reynolds of Greensboro, a 70-year-old man with diabetes and severe arthritis who spent the mornings bundled up by a kerosene heater with room temperatures “around 50 degrees”. said he spent

In the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga, two people died at their home on Friday after paramedics failed to treat their conditions in time, according to Erie County Administrator Mark Polonkers. It said the blizzard could be “the worst storm in the history of our community.”

Poloncarz said one trip to the hospital took the ambulance more than three hours.

Forecasters said Buffalo had 28 inches (71 centimeters) of snow on Saturday. Last month, an area just south of the city received a record 6 feet of snow in a single storm.

A recent storm knocked out the furnace at Brian Laprad’s Buffalo home.

“I had to go out and dig out the vents,” Laprad said. “As expected, the snow was higher than the snowplow.”

The road was plowed, but progress was slowed by large snowdrifts, abandoned cars and downed power lines.

About 50 vehicles were involved in a turnpike in Ohio, killing four people. A Kansas City, Missouri, driver died Thursday after skidding into a creek, and three others died Wednesday in another crash on icy roads in northern Kansas.

An Ohio utility worker also died Friday trying to restore power, according to the Buckeye Rural Electric Cooperative. A 22-year-old man died in an “electrical contact accident” near Pedro, Lawrence County.

A Vermont woman died Friday in a hospital after a broken tree fell in strong winds. A 57-year-old woman died Friday after falling from river ice near Janesville, Wisconsin, the Rock County Sheriff’s Office said.

Along Interstate 71 in Kentucky, Terry Henderson and her husband Rick were stranded for 34 hours in a massive traffic jam caused by multiple accidents. The truck driver survived the wait on a rig with a diesel heater, toilet and refrigerator, but regrets trying to drive from Alabama to her home near Akron, Ohio, on Christmas. I was.

“We should have stayed,” said Terry Henderson after they moved in again on Saturday.

The storm was nearly unprecedented in its extent, from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande River along the border with Mexico. About 60% of Americans faced some kind of winter weather advisory or warning, with temperatures well below normal east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachian Mountains, the National Weather Service said.

As millions of Americans traveled before Christmas, more than 2,360 flights in and out of the US were canceled on Saturday, according to tracking site FlightAware.

In Mexico, migrants camping near the U.S. border faced unusually cold weather as they awaited the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on pandemic-era restrictions.

Weather forecasters say a bomb cyclone, a rapid drop in atmospheric pressure during a storm, has formed near the Great Lakes, causing blizzard conditions such as high winds and snow.

Western New York State often sees dramatic lake-effect snow caused by cold air picking up moisture from warm water and bringing it down to land. But even residents of the area found the situation dire on Christmas Eve.

Latricia Stroud and her two daughters, ages 1 and 12, have been stranded in their Buffalo home since Friday afternoon, without heat or electricity.

“You have to climb over a snowman to get out,” Stroud told the Associated Press. “There is a warming center. You need a car to get there.”

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This article has been updated to show that the 57-year-old woman who died Friday was near Janesville, Wisconsin, rather than Madison, Wisconsin.

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Breiburg reported from Dallas. His AP journalist Mark Levy, who lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Corey Williams of Southfield, Michigan. John Lavy of Charleston, West Virginia. Maysoon Khan of Albany, New York. Hannah Schoenbaum of Raleigh, North Carolina. Wilson Ring in Stowe, Vermont. John Hanna of Topeka, Kansas contributed to this report.