The prolonged winter storm, which brought heavy snow, high winds and bone-chilling cold to most of the United States and Canada this past week, has killed at least 38 people and had hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses without power on Christmas morning.
Officials say 34 people died across the US, with the worst-hit area being the city of Buffalo, in New York state. The storm is expected to claim more lives after trapping some residents inside houses as temperatures plummeted drastically below normal.
Four fatalities occurred in Canada when a bus rolled over on an icy road near the town of Merritt, in the western province of British Columbia.
The scope of the storm has been nearly unprecedented, stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the border with Mexico. About 60% of the U.S. population faced some sort of winter weather advisory or warning.
Thousands of U.S. flights were canceled Saturday, and nearly 3,000 as of Sunday night, according to the tracking site FlightAware.
Forecasters said a bomb cyclone — when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm — had developed near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions, chills winds and snow. The storm unleashed its full fury on Buffalo, with hurricane-force winds and snow causing whiteout conditions, and paralyzing emergency response efforts, according to officials.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul said there had been 12 storm-related deaths in Erie County — six in Buffalo, three in the town of Amherst and three in Cheektowaga. The youngest victim was 26 years old while the oldest was 93 years old. Storm-related deaths were also reported in Vermont, Ohio, Missouri, Wisconsin, Kansas, and Colorado. South Florida’s temperatures dropped dangerously low.
