Winter storm Elliott – latest: Driving ban lifted in Buffalo as blizzard deaths hit 38

The massive storm has killed at least 34 people across the United States and is expected to claim more lives after trapping some residents inside houses and knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses.

The extreme weather stretched from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60 per cent of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians.

The National Weather Service said Sunday the frigid arctic air “enveloping much of the eastern half of the US will be slow to moderate.”

Buffalo, New York has seen some of the worst conditions of the storm over the past few days.

The city saw hurricane-force winds and snow causing whiteout conditions that paralysed emergency response efforts.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul said almost every fire truck in the city was stranded on Saturday and implored people on Sunday to respect an ongoing driving ban in the region. Officials said the airport would be shut through Tuesday morning. The National Weather Service said the snow total at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport stood at 43 inches (109 centimeters) at 7 am on Sunday.

Huge snowdrifts nearly covered cars and there were thousands of houses, some adorned in unlit holiday displays, dark from a lack of power.

With snow swirling down untouched and impassable streets, forecasters warned an additional one to two feet (30 to 60 centimetres) of snow was possible in some areas through early Monday morning amid wind gusts of 40 mph (64 kph). Police said on Sunday evening that there were two “isolated” instances of looting during the storm.

Two people died in their suburban Cheektowaga, New York, homes Friday when emergency crews could not reach them in time to treat their medical conditions. Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said 10 more people died there during the storm, including six in Buffalo, and warned there may be more dead.

“Some were found in cars, some were found on the street in snowbanks,” Poloncarz said. “We know there are people who have been stuck in cars for more than 2 days.”

AP

Freezing conditions and power outages had Buffalonians scrambling to get to anywhere with heat amid what Hochul called the longest sustained blizzard conditions ever in the city. But with streets under a thick blanket of white, that wasn’t an option for people like Jeremy Manahan, who charged his phone in his parked car after almost 29 hours without electricity.

“There’s one warming shelter, but that would be too far for me to get to. I can’t drive, obviously, because I’m stuck,” Mr Manahan said. “And you can’t be outside for more than 10 minutes without getting frostbit.”

Ditjak Ilunga of Gaithersburg, Maryland, was on his way to visit relatives in Hamilton, Ontario, for Christmas with his daughters Friday when their SUV was trapped in Buffalo. Unable to get help, they spent hours with the engine running, buffeted by wind, and nearly buried in snow.

By 4am on Saturday, their fuel nearly gone, Mr Ilunga made a desperate choice to risk the howling storm to reach a nearby shelter. He carried six-year-old Destiny on his back while 16-year-old Cindy clutched their Pomeranian puppy, following his footprints through drifts.

“If I stay in this car I’m going to die here with my kids,” Mr Ilunga recalled thinking. He cried when the family walked through the shelter doors. “It’s something I will never forget in my life.”

AP

The greater Buffalo region, lying at the edge of Lake Erie near the Canadian border was one of the hardest-hit places as the numbing cold combined with howling winds and heavy “lake-effect” snow — the result of moisture picked up by frigid air moving over warmer lake waters — produced a storm that Governor Kathy Hochul said would go down in history as “the Blizzard of ‘22.”

The storm’s official death toll in Buffalo and elsewhere in Erie County climbed to 13 on Sunday, and was expected to rise as more bodies found in snow drifts or buried vehicles were examined and confirmed as weather-related fatalities, authorities said.

The governor called it an “epic, once-in-a-lifetime” weather disaster that ranked as the fiercest winter storm to hit Buffalo, New York state’s second-largest city, since a crippling 1977 blizzard that killed nearly 30 people.

The latest blizzard, which initially overwhelmed emergency crews, came nearly six weeks after a record-setting but shorter-lived lake-effect storm struck western New York.

Reuters

The death toll from a bomb cyclone which has wrought havoc across the United States has risen to at least 50.

Winter Storm Elliott brought temperatures as low as -50F (-45C) across a vast swathe of North America from the Great Lakes near Canada to Arizona and dumped up to six feet of snow in western New York state.

More than one million people were left without power on Christmas Day according to poweroutage.us, while tens of thousands of had travel plans disrupted due to cancelled flights and dangerous roads.

Bevan Hurley reports for The Independent.

In Buffalo, Despite a ban on road travel imposed since Friday, hundreds of Erie County motorists were stranded in their vehicles over the weekend, with National Guard troops mobilised to help with rescues hindered by blinding white-out conditions.

Authorities were expected to decide Monday morning whether to extend the ban.

County Chief Executive Mark Poloncarz told reporters that snow drifts as high as eight feet on roadways were too thick and heavy to clear with conventional snow-removal equipment.

Many snow plows, tow trucks, ambulances, and other emergency vehicles dispatched on Saturday and Sunday became stuck in the snow, “and we had to send rescue missions to rescue the rescuers,” he said.

The Buffalo police department posted an online plea to the public for assistance, asking those who “have a snow mobile and are willing to help” to call a hotline for instructions.

Reuters

Horror weather across the US has led to nearly 17,000 flight cancellations during the Christmas period - and the holiday travel nightmares are likely far from over.

In the lead up to the big day, more than 12,000 flights within, into and out of the US were cancelled between Wednesday (21 December) and Saturday (24 December), according to data from FlightAware.

Nearly 3,200 flights were axed on Christmas Day itself, followed by another 1,721 so far on Boxing Day (26 December) as of 10am ET.

Gustaf Kilander has the full report for The Independent.

The storm knocked out power in communities from Maine to Seattle. But heat and lights were steadily being restored across the US. According to poweroutage.us, less than 200,000 customers were without power Sunday at 3 pm EDT — down from a peak of 1.7 million. By Monday morning that number was down to 62,000.

Concerns about rolling blackouts across eastern states subsided Sunday after PJM Interconnection said its utilities could meet the day’s peak electricity demand. The mid-Atlantic grid operator had called for its 65 million consumers to conserve energy amid the freeze Saturday.