BUFFALO, NY (AP) — Millions of people crouch in a deep freeze overnight and early morning to brave the frigid storm that killed at least 18 people across the United States, with some residents trapped in homes with accumulating snow drifts and knockout power to hundreds of thousands of households and businesses.
The size of the storm is almost unprecedented, stretching from the Great Lakes off Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60% of the U.S. population experienced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from the Rocky Mountains east to the Appalachians, according to the National Weather Service.
More than 2,360 domestic and international flights were canceled on Saturday, according to tracking site FlightAware.
Forecasters said a bomb cyclone — when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm — had developed near the Great Lakes, bringing blizzard conditions including heavy winds and snow.
The storm unleashed its full fury on Buffalo, with hurricane-force winds and snow creating whiteout conditions, paralyzing emergency response efforts — New York Governor Kathy Hochul said nearly every fire engine in the city was stranded — and shutting down the airport through Monday. according to officials.
The freezing cold and a day-long power outage forced the Buffalons to rush out of their homes in places where it was hot on Saturday. But with city streets covered in a thick blanket of white, that wasn’t an option for the likes of Jeremy Manahan, who charged his phone in his parked car after nearly 29 hours without electricity.
“There is one warm shelter, but that would be too far to come. Of course I can’t drive because I’m stuck,” Manahan said. “And you can’t be outside for more than 10 minutes without frostbite.”
Mark Poloncarz, director of Erie County, home to Buffalo, said ambulances took more than three hours to make a single hospital trip and the blizzard could be “the worst storm in our community’s history.”
Two people died Friday at their homes in suburban Cheektowaga, New York, when emergency services couldn’t get to them in time to treat their medical condition, he said, and another died in Buffalo.
“We can’t just pick up everyone and take you to a heating center. We don’t have the ability to do that,” Poloncarz said. “Lots of neighborhoods, especially in the city of Buffalo, are still impassable.”
Ditjak Ilunga of Gaithersburg, Maryland, was on his way with his daughters to visit relatives in Hamilton, Ontario, for Christmas on Friday when their SUV got stuck in Buffalo. Unable to get help, they spent hours with the engine running in the vehicle, buffeted by the wind and nearly buried in the snow.
At 4 a.m. Saturday, with their fuel running low, Ilunga made a desperate choice to risk the howling storm to reach a nearby shelter. He carried 6-year-old Destiny on his back, while 16-year-old Cindy held their Pomeranian puppy and followed in his footsteps as they trudged through drifts.
“If I stay in this car, I’m going to die here with my kids,” he recalls thinking, but believing they should try. He cried as the family walked through the doors of the shelter. “It’s something I’ll never forget in my life.”
The storm knocked out power in communities from Maine to Seattle, and a major power grid operator warned 65 million people in the eastern U.S. of possible continued blackouts.
More than 273,000 customers were without power in the six New England states on Saturday, with Maine the hardest hit. Some utilities said electricity may not be restored for days.
In North Carolina, 169,000 customers were without power on Saturday afternoon, compared to more than 485,000. Utilities officials said the blackout would continue for the next several days.
Storm-related deaths were reported across the country in recent days: four killed in an Ohio Turnpike pile-up involving some 50 vehicles; four motorists killed in separate crashes in Missouri and Kansas; electrocuted an Ohio utility company; a Vermont woman who was struck by a falling branch; an apparently homeless man found amid the freezing temperatures in Colorado; a woman who fell through Wisconsin river ice.
In Mexico, migrants camping near the US border faced unusually cold temperatures awaiting a US Supreme Court decision on pandemic-era restrictions that prevented many from seeking asylum.
Along Interstate 71 in Kentucky, Terry Henderson and her husband, Rick, endured a 34-hour traffic jam in an oil rig equipped with a diesel stove, toilet and refrigerator after getting stuck driving from Alabama to their Ohio home for Christmas.
“We should have stayed,” said Terry Henderson after they got moving again on Saturday.
Erie County’s Poloncarz tweeted late Saturday that 34.6 inches (about 88 centimeters) of snow had accumulated at the Buffalo airport and that drifts were over 6 feet in some areas. Blizzards were expected to ease early Sunday, he continued, but continued lake-effect snow was predicted.
Vivian Robinson of Spirit of Truth Urban Ministry in Buffalo said she and her husband sheltered and cooked for 60 to 70 people, including stranded travelers and local residents without power or heat, who spent Saturday night at the church.
Many arrived with ice and snow stuck to their clothes, crying, their skin reddened by the single-digit temperatures. On Saturday night, they prepared to spend Christmas together.
“It’s emotional to see the pain that they thought they wouldn’t make it, and to see that we had opened up the church, and that gave them a sense of relief,” Robinson said. “Those who are here are really having a good time. It will be a different Christmas for everyone.”
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Bleiberg reported from Dallas. Associated Press journalist Marc Levy in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Corey Williams in Southfield, Michigan; John Raby in Charleston, West Virginia; Maysoon Khan in Albany, New York; Hannah Schoenbaum in Raleigh, North Carolina; Wilsonring in Stowe, Vermont; and John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, contributed to this report.
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