Christmas weekend deep freeze leaves 17 dead

Much of the US is in a frozen grip for the third straight day

NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — A fearsome winter storm continued to pummel parts of the United States with blizzard conditions Saturday evening after its powerful Arctic winds left over a million customers 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 have essentially collapsed in the face of extreme blizzard conditions.

The National Weather Service warned that blizzard conditions in the Great Lakes region caused by lake-effect snow will continue into Saturday night, including in Buffalo.

3,300 flights cancelled

The “bomb cyclone” winter storm, one of the fiercest in decades, had already forced the cancellation of over 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 website Flightaware.com.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg tweeted Saturday 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.

New York City resident Zack Cuyler, whose flight home to Houston on 22 December has been postponed then canceled twice this week already, was “pretty steamed” about the chaos.

The 35-year-old now hopes to reach his loved ones by 25 December. “I’m just glad I’ll get to see my family for Christmas,” he told AFP.

Lethal conditions

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.

The NWS warned about lethal conditions and urged residents in affected areas to remain indoors. On Friday, it said wind chills had sent temperatures plunging to -48 Celsius.

Emergency services have essentially collapsed.

At one point during the day, nearly 1.7 million customers were without electricity in the biting cold, according to tracker poweroutage.us.

Though power had largely been restored by late Saturday, people were urged to conserve electricity and rolling blackouts were instituted in some parts of the country, including in North Carolina.

Staying outside

In El Paso, Texas, desperate migrants who had crossed from Mexico huddled for warmth in churches, schools and a civic center, Rosa Falcon, a school teacher and volunteer told AFP.

But some still chose to stay outside in frigid temperatures because they feared attention from immigration authorities, she added.

In Chicago, Burke Patten of Night Ministry, a nonprofit dedicated to helping the homeless, said: “We’ve been handing out cold weather gear, including coats, hats, gloves, thermal underwear, blankets and sleeping bags, along with hand and foot warmers.”

Weather officials forecast that dangerously cold conditions would continue throughout the central and eastern US over the weekend before temperatures returned to more normal seasonal weather next week.

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 at airports

in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.