Hundreds of thousands of Americans woke up in the dead of night to a dangerously windy and white Christmas following a brutal winter storm that affected greater than half the country and killed at the very least 24 people.
The death toll was expected to rise as rescue and recovery employees rushed to people stranded in homes and cars without heat in bitter cold temperatures.
Some 60% of the US population was under a winter weather advisory or warning this weekend and far of the eastern half of the country was grappling with temperatures that were far below normal.
In Buffalo, much of town remained “impassable” after ferocious prolonged blizzard conditions dumped 43 inches of snow on the airport and paralyzed the world. A driving ban remained in effect, and volunteer snowmobilers had been tapped to rescue stranded motorists, officials said.
First responders were “demoralized” by being unable to navigate the zero visibility conditions and freezing temperatures that had killed six people in town, Mayor Byron Brown said during a Christmas morning update on Zoom.
“We all know that number goes to be higher,” Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said of the stated death toll.
Wind gusts had slowed to 40 miles per hour from 79 mph Sunday, but 4 to five feet of snow were predicted in town through Sunday night, and greater than 27,000 homes were without power in Erie County on Christmas afternoon, in keeping with Poweroutage.us.
Emergency responders had been stifled by the fast-falling snow, and ten fire trucks in town had been stranded, in keeping with local officials. Snow drifts in town were as high as 6 feet.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said ambulances were taking three hours per trip, and that the acute weather event is likely to be “the worst storm in our community’s history.”
“Many, many neighborhoods, especially in town of Buffalo, are still impassable,” he warned.
“It’s like a Category 3 hurricane with a bunch of snow mixed in,” Chief Tim Carney of the Erie County Sheriff’s Office told The Buffalo News of the brutal conditions.
Although parts of the region had seen greater than 80 inches of snow just last month, the newest storm was considered historic due to its unrelenting ferocity and proximity to Christmas.
“That is the primary time there have been blizzard conditions leading right up into Christmas Day,” Christopher Tate, associate weather producer and meteorologist at Fox Weather, told The Post. “It was also coupled with such intense snow and really very cold temperatures.”
“Even in a blizzard, it’s rare to get absolutely zero visibility. Often it’s even a sixteenth of a mile… and we had that for an prolonged period with this method,” he said.
The bomb cyclone weather event — which occurs when atmospheric pressure plummets and cold air collides with warmer moist air to explosive effect — was heightened by temperatures in the one digits and teenagers colliding with relatively warm air of Lake Erie, where temps were within the mid 40s.
“This might be just going to be called within the local vernacular, this was ‘The Christmas Blizzard,’” Tate predicted.
Jeremy Manahan braved the snow and cold to charge his phone in his automobile after spending nearly 30 hours without electricity in The Queen City.
“There’s one warming shelter, but that will be too far for me to get to. I can’t drive, obviously, because I’m stuck,” Manahan said. “And you may’t be outside for greater than 10 minutes without getting frostbit.”
Ditjak Ilunga of Gaithersburg, Maryland, was taking his family to Canada for the vacations when their vehicle got stuck in Buffalo Friday. They spent hours within the vehicle attempting to stay warm, until it was nearly buried in snow.
By Saturday morning, the SUV was almost out of gas, and Ilunga carried his 6-year-old daughter Destiny to a close-by shelter while Cindy, 16, and their Pomeranian puppy followed in his footsteps.
“If I stay on this automobile I’m going to die here with my kids,” he recalled considering. When the desperate gambit paid off, and the family arrived on the shelter, Ilunga cried.
“It’s something I’ll always remember in my life,” he said.
The prolonged effects of Winter Storm Elliot were felt from coast to coast, with power down in communities from Maine to Washington state.
The cold weather was felt all the way in which from Canada to Mexico, and migrants waiting on a Supreme Court decision on a pandemic-era ruling that had expelled them from entering the country were camping out near the border in sub-freezing temperatures.
In Ohio, 10 people died in multiple crashes, including in an Ohio Turnpike pileup involving greater than 4 dozen vehicles, and 4 others died in automobile crashes in Missouri and Kansas.
The cold weather killed an apparently homeless man in Colorado, and a lady died in Wisconsin after falling through river ice. A Vermont woman was killed when she was hit by a falling tree branch, and an Ohio utility employee was electrocuted.
Blizzard and travel warnings were in effect in Montana and parts of Idaho through Christmas Day.
“Travel may very well be very difficult to unimaginable,” advised the National Weather Service. “Widespread blowing snow will significantly reduce visibility, while drifting snow could lead on to finish lane blockages.”
Greater than 1,600 Christmas Day flights with at the very least one leg within the US had been canceled by early afternoon, in keeping with the flight tracking website FlightAware.
In Florida, cold blooded iguanas fell out of trees after becoming immobilized by temperatures that reached as little as below freezing in Tampa and 43 degrees in West Palm Beach.
Greater than 91,000 homes and businesses were in the dead of night in Maine Christmas morning, and restoration for a lot of may very well be days away, in keeping with utility crews.
Still, whilst a significant utility warned of rolling blackouts that would affect 65 million people within the eastern US, crews had worked to show the juice on for lots of of 1000’s of individuals in time for Christmas morning.
Only about 6,500 customers were in the dead of night in North Carolina, down from a high of nearly a half million. Outside of Maine, much of the remaining of Latest England had power restored, a day after some 273,000 customers within the region were in the dead of night.
Many stranded arrivals on the Truth Urban Ministry in Buffalo on Christmas Eve had ice and snow plastered to their clothes, as their faces were frozen red by temperatures in the one digits.
“It’s emotional simply to see the hurt that they thought they weren’t going to make it, and to see that we had opened up the church, and it gave them a way of relief,” shelter employee Vivian Robinson said.
“Those that are listed below are really having fun with themselves. It’s going to be a special Christmas for everybody.”
With Post wires