The death toll attributed to the winter storm rose to more than 50 after authorities confirmed three more fatalities in Erie County in western New York, the epicenter of the crisis.
The police department “expects this number to increase,” tweeted Byron Brown, mayor of the county’s largest lakeside city, Buffalo – which was crippled for five days by snow banks until to the chest and power outages, and where more snowfall was expected on Tuesday. .
New York State Governor and Buffalo native Kathy Hochul described the storm’s aftermath as resembling “a war zone.”
“It’s definitely the blizzard of the century,” Hochul told reporters on Monday.
As temperatures plummeted, commuters and some residents fleeing their freezing homes found themselves trapped on highways, unable to be rescued.
The problem was compounded when some areas were made inaccessible to ambulances for dozens of hours and snowplows were unable to carry out their work due to the ferocity of the storm, requiring the rescue of lifeguards in some cases.
The family of 22-year-old Buffalo resident Anndel Taylor said she died in her car after becoming stuck on her way home from work.
A video sent by Taylor and posted by her sister shows her vehicle covered in snow up to the windows.
Rescuers, who got themselves stranded trying to save her, found her dead 18 hours later, possibly from carbon monoxide poisoning, her family in North Carolina told the local television channel WSOC-TV.
A father described being trapped in his vehicle on the streets of Buffalo with his four young children for 11 hours before being rescued, according to The New York Times.
Zila Santiago, 30, said he left his engine running to warm up and fed his children juice found in his trunk.
They were eventually rescued at dawn by a passing snowplow.
In a city well accustomed to snowstorms, some residents blamed a travel ban they said was enacted too late on Friday morning of contributing to the scale of the disaster.
The perfect storm of ferocious snow squalls, howling winds and sub-zero temperatures has forced the cancellation of nearly 20,000 US flights in recent days, including more than 3,000 on Tuesday, according to tracking site Flightaware.com.
Most of Tuesday’s cancellations involved Southwest Airlines, which pulled more than 60% of its flights due to cascading logistical problems, earning it a reprimand from the US government.
The Department of Transportation tweeted that it was “concerned about Southwest’s unacceptable rate of cancellations” and would review whether the company “is complying with its customer service plan,” while the US Senate committee overseeing the aviation said it would look into causes that “go beyond the weather.”
US President Joe Biden on Monday approved a declaration of emergency for New York state, freeing up funds to help it recover from the disaster.
Buffalo International Airport remains closed through Wednesday morning and a driving ban remained in effect for the city, where thousands of people were still without power.
“You can absolutely go out and walk to check on neighbors, go to open stores, etc. But don’t drive,” County Executive Mark Poloncarz warned in a tweet.
Bill Sherlock, a longtime Buffalo resident, told AFP that his house received about a meter of snow, but he was lucky to have electricity and food.
The less fortunate “probably had the worst Christmas of their lives,” said the 38-year-old lawyer, aware that some homes in his neighborhood have had no electricity since Friday.
Sherlock said he could wait another day before leaving home for the first time in almost a week: “We’re not going anywhere unless we have to.”
Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown told CNN several incidents of looting were reported in the city over Christmas weekend and eight arrests were made.
The National Weather Service forecast isolated patches of snow in western New York on Tuesday, but a thaw was in sight.
A respite from warmer temperatures around 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius) was expected by the weekend, although officials warned that melting snow could lead to minor flooding.
Severe weather over the weekend sent sub-zero temperatures across all mainland U.S. states, including communities in Texas along the Mexican border where some arriving migrants struggled to find shelter.
At one point on Saturday, nearly 1.7 million customers were without power in the bitter cold, according to tracker poweroutage.us.
The icing and whiteout conditions also caused the temporary closure of some of the nation’s busiest transportation routes, including part of Interstate 70.
look Ferocious storm in Buffalo; The “blizzard of the century” kills nearly 50 in the United States
