Savage US blizzard leaves 31 dead, power outages, travel snarls

A brutal winter storm brought Christmas Day danger and misery to millions of Americans Sunday as intense snow and frigid cold gripped parts of the eastern United States, with weather-related deaths rising to at least 31.

A crisis situation was unfolding in Buffalo, in western New York, where a blizzard has left the city marooned, with emergency services unable to reach high impact areas.

"It is (like) going to a warzone, and the vehicles along the sides of the roads are shocking," said New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a native of Buffalo, where eight-foot (2.4-meter) snow drifts and power outages have made for life-threatening conditions.

Hochul told reporters Sunday evening that residents were still in the throes of a "very dangerous life-threatening situation" and warned anyone in the area to remain indoors.

More than 200,000 people across several eastern states woke up without power on Christmas morning and many more had their holiday travel plans upended, although the five-day-long storm featuring blizzard conditions and ferocious winds showed signs of easing.

The extreme weather sent wind chill temperatures in all 48 contiguous US states below freezing over the weekend, stranded holiday travelers with thousands of flights canceled and trapped residents in ice- and snow-encrusted homes.

Thirty-one weather-related deaths have been confirmed across nine states, including four in Colorado who likely died of exposure and at least 12 in New York state, where officials warned the number would likely rise.

Officials described historically dangerous conditions in the snow-prone Buffalo region, with hours-long whiteouts and bodies discovered in vehicles and under snow banks as emergency workers struggled to search for those in need of rescue.

The city's international airport remains closed until Tuesday and a driving ban remained in effect for all of Erie County, where the lake-side metropolis is located.

"We now have what'll be talked about not just today but for generations (as) the blizzard of '22," Hochul said, adding that the brutality had surpassed the region's prior landmark snowstorm of 1977 in "intensity, the longevity, the ferocity of the winds."

Due to frozen electric substations, some residents were not expected to regain power until Tuesday, with one frozen substation reportedly buried under 18 feet of snow, a senior county official said.

'Conditions are just so bad'

The National Weather Service warned that blizzard conditions in the Great Lakes region caused by lake-effect snow would continue on Christmas Day, with
"additional snow accumulations of 2 to 3 feet (0.6 to 0.9 meters) through tonight."

One couple in Buffalo, which sits across the border from Canada, told AFP Saturday that with the roads completely impassible, they would not be making a
10-minute drive to see their family for Christmas.

"It's tough because the conditions are just so bad... a lot of fire departments aren't even sending out trucks for calls," said 40-year-old Rebecca Bortolin.

A broader travel nightmare was in full effect for millions.

The "bomb cyclone" storm, one of the fiercest in decades, forced the cancellation of more than 1,500 US flights on Sunday, in addition to some 3,500 scrapped Saturday and nearly 6,000 on Friday, 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."

But travelers remained stranded or delayed at airports including in Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Minneapolis and New York.

Road ice and white-out conditions also led to the temporary closure of some of the nation's busiest transport routes, including the cross-country Interstate 70.

Drivers were being warned not to take to the roads -- even as the nation reached what is usually its busiest time of year for travel.

The extreme weather has severely taxed the country's electricity grids, with multiple power providers urging customers to reduce usage to minimize rolling blackouts in places like North Carolina and Tennessee.

At one point on Saturday, nearly 1.7 million customers across the country were without electricity in the biting cold, according to tracker poweroutage.us.

But the figure dropped substantially by Sunday, although more than 200,000 customers in eastern states still lacked power.

Canadian authorities have also issued severe weather warnings. Hundreds of thousands were left without power in Ontario and Quebec provinces, many flights were canceled in major cities and train passenger service between Toronto and Ottawa was suspended.

In British Columbia province, authorities said 53 people were injured when a passenger bus crashed late Saturday on a highway known as the Okanagan
Connector northeast of Vancouver. The cause of the crash was under investigation.