A cold winter storm has swept across the country, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses and leaving millions worried about the possibility of blackouts on Christmas Eve.
The storm unleashed its full fury in Buffalo, New York, with hurricane-force winds causing whiteout conditions. Emergency response efforts were halted and the city’s international airport was closed.
CBS News has confirmed at least 20 weather-related deaths from the storm across the country. At least three people died in the Buffalo area, including two who suffered medical emergencies at their homes and couldn’t be saved because emergency crews couldn’t get there amid historic blizzard conditions.
As millions of Americans traveled before Christmas, more than 5,500 flights within, within or out of the United States were canceled Saturday, according to tracking site FlightAware. Airlines were playing catch-up with crew shortages and melting ice slowing the return to normalcy, CBS News correspondent Naomi Ruchim reported. In Seattle, an ice storm closed several runways.
A bobcat makes its way to help dig up abandoned vehicles along the shore of Lake Erie during a powerful winter storm on December 24, 2022 in Hamburg, New York. John Normile/Getty Images
As of Saturday night, at least 345,000 customers were without power nationwide, according to the outage-tracking site PowerOutage.us. Of these, more than 170,000 were in the New England region.
Deep snow, single-digit temperatures and day-long power outages sent Buffalo residents scurrying from their homes to anywhere warm on Saturday. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Buffalo Niagara International Airport will remain closed until Monday morning and nearly all of the city’s fire trucks were stuck in the snow.
“No matter how many emergency vehicles we have, they can’t make it through the conditions as we speak,” Hochul said.
Forecasters said 28 inches of snow had already accumulated Saturday in Buffalo, part of an area that saw 6 feet fall just over a month ago, leading to three deaths. More is expected overnight.
Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said the storm may be “the worst storm in the history of our community.” He said it took ambulances more than three hours to make a trip to a hospital. There were plows on the roads, but heavy snowfall, abandoned cars and downed power lines were slowing progress.
Ice covers Hoak’s restaurant along the shore of Lake Erie on December 24, 2022 in Hamburg, New York. John Normile/Getty Images
Blinding snowstorms, freezing rain and frigid temperatures also knocked out power in places from Maine to Seattle, while a major power grid operator warned the 65 million people it serves in the East of the United States that blackouts might be necessary.
Pennsylvania-based PJM Interconnection said power plants are struggling to operate in the cold weather and has asked residents in 13 states to save electricity at least until Christmas morning. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides electricity to 10 million people in the state and parts of six surrounding areas, ordered local power companies to implement planned outages but ended the measure late Saturday . The start of the NFL’s Tennessee Titans game in Nashville was delayed an hour due to a planned power outage.
The PJM Interconnection, which covers all or part of 13 states and Washington, DC, also warned that outages may be necessary.
A powerful storm covers much of the US 01:04
In North Carolina, 169,000 customers were without power Saturday afternoon, down from a peak of more than 485,000, but utility officials said outages would continue “for the next several days.”
Among those without power was James Reynolds of Greensboro, who said his housemate, a 70-year-old man with diabetes and severe arthritis, spent the morning next to a kerosene heater with indoor temperatures “in around the 50s”.
In Jackson, Mississippi, officials said Saturday that the city’s water system, which partially collapsed in late August, was experiencing “fluctuating” pressure Saturday afternoon amid frigid temperatures.
Some residents in Mississippi’s capital may temporarily experience low water pressure, officials warned. Before the “Arctic blast” that brought dangerously cold air to Jackson, Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba warned that the city’s water distribution system remained a “tremendous vulnerability.”
Ticket prices at Soldier Field in Chicago on Saturday dropped faster than the temperature, with some seats going for $10 in third-party venues to watch the Bears take on the Buffalo Bills. The temperature at the start was 9 degrees, with a wind chill of -12. It was Buffalo’s coldest road game by temperature since at least 1967.
In Montana, it’s been minus 40 degrees or worse for much of the week, with ranchers scrambling to keep their cattle safe.
She’s fast pic.twitter.com/kiNVkJqUV3
— Dirk O’Connor (@mtdirtfarmer) December 22, 2022
On the Ohio Turnpike, four were killed Friday in a massive pileup involving about 50 vehicles. A driver in Kansas City, Mo., died Thursday after skidding into a creek, and three others died Wednesday in separate crashes on icy roads in northern Kansas.
A utility worker in Ohio also died Friday while trying to restore power, a utility said. Buckeye Rural Electric Cooperative said the 22-year-old died in “an electrical contact incident” near Pedro in Lawrence County.
A Vermont woman died in a hospital Friday after a tree snapped in high winds and fell on top of her. Police in Colorado Springs said they found the body of a person who appeared to be homeless as sub-zero temperatures and snow descended on the region. In Madison, Wis., a 57-year-old woman died Friday after falling through the ice on a river, the Rock County Sheriff’s Office announced.
In Lansing, Michigan, an 82-year-old woman died after she was found collapsed in the snow outside her assisted living community Friday morning, Bath police said. A snowplow driver found the woman when temperatures hovered around 10 degrees.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said one person died in a weather-related traffic accident in western Kentucky and a homeless person died in Louisville.
Along Interstate 71 in Kentucky, Terry Henderson and her husband, Rick, were stuck in a massive traffic jam caused by multiple accidents for 34 hours. The truck drivers endured the wait in a rig equipped with a diesel heater, toilet and refrigerator, but nevertheless regretted trying to drive from Alabama to their home near Akron , Ohio, for Christmas.
“I wish we would have stayed,” said Terry Henderson, after they moved again on Saturday. “We should have sat down.”
The storm was almost unprecedented in its reach, stretching from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the Mexican border. About 60% of the US population faced some type of winter weather advisory or warning, with temperatures falling sharply below normal from the Rocky Mountains east to the Appalachians, the National Weather Service said.
In Mexico, migrants camped near the U.S. border in unseasonably cold temperatures as they awaited a U.S. Supreme Court decision on pandemic-era restrictions that prevent many from seeking asylum. Dozens of migrants also lived and slept on the streets of the Texas border city of El Paso in sub-freezing temperatures waiting for shelters to open. Most were wearing donated winter clothing they received from local residents and sympathetic volunteers.
Meteorologists said a bomb cyclone, when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm, had developed near the Great Lakes, causing blizzard conditions, including high winds and snow.
Western New York often sees dramatic lake-effect snow, which is caused by cool air picking up moisture from warm water and then dumping it over land. But even area residents found dire conditions on Christmas Eve.
Latricia Stroud said she and her two daughters, ages 1 and 12, have been stuck without heat or power in their Buffalo home since Friday afternoon, with the snow too deep to leave.
“I have to go through a snowbank to get out,” Stroud told the AP. “There’s a warming center, I just need a ride to get there.”
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