Extreme winter weather leaves many without power, travelers stranded

SOUTHFIELD, Michigan (AP) — A battering winter storm knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses across the United States on Saturday, left millions more to worry about the prospect of how further outages outages would affect holiday and travel plans.

Across the country, officials have attributed at least a dozen deaths to exposure, icy car crashes and other effects of the storm, including two people who died in their homes outside Buffalo, New York, when emergency crews couldn’t reach them amid historic blizzard conditions.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Saturday that the the Buffalo Niagara International Airport will be closed through Monday morning, some roads would be closed through Christmas day and almost every fire truck in Buffalo was stranded in the snow.

“No matter how many emergency vehicles we have, they cannot get through the conditions as we speak,” Hochul said.

The blinding blizzards, freezing rain and frigid cold that enveloped much of the country knocked out power to 1.7 million households and businesses, while a major electricity grid operator warned the 65 million people it serves across the eastern U.S. that rolling blackouts might be required.

Pennsylvania-based PJM Interconnection said power plants are having difficulty operating in the frigid weather and has asked residents to refrain from unnecessary use of electricity. The Tennessee Valley Authority, which provides electricity to 10 million people in Tennessee and parts of six surrounding states, directed local power companies to implement planned interruptions to “ensure power system reliability” but ended the measure by Saturday afternoon.

Chris Muenks said he and his cats woke up to a cold house in Greeneville, Tennessee on Saturday morning. The power came back on, he said, only to go out again at midmorning in a planned rolling blackout.

“I’m disappointed in my power grid. It feels like a kick in the gut,” Muenks said. “I understand storms and I understand wind, but I don’t understand ‘don’t have enough power.’"

Adding to the woes were power outages that by early Saturday were still affecting more than 1.7 million homes and businesses, according to the website PowerOutage, which tracks utility reports.

Across the six New England states, more than 329,000 electric customers remained without power on Saturday morning, with Maine the hardest hit and some utilities warning it could be days before power is restored. In North Carolina, nearly 300,000 customers were without power, according to poweroutage.us. PJM Interconnection — which covers all or parts of Delaware, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, D.C. — also warned rolling blackouts might be required.

In the Buffalo suburb of Cheektowaga, two people died in their homes on Friday when emergency crews could not reach them in time to treat their medical emergencies, according to Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.

“This may turn out to be the worst storm in our community’s history,” Poloncarz said Saturday morning. “There are still likely hundreds of people stuck in vehicles.”

Colleen Darby, 59, of Williamsville outside Buffalo, says she had planned to host a Christmas party for family and friends, but the storm will keep her and her daughter at home with a refrigerator full of food.

I’ve never seen the likes of this kind of storm,” said Darby, a lifelong resident of the area. "I can’t even get out of my house, right now. The snow is up to my chest. You can’t even walk through it because it’s so heavy and thick.

Poloncarz said there is no emergency service available in Buffalo and several populous communities surrounding it because so many emergency vehicles are snowbound. He said a doctor had to talk a woman and her pregnant sister through the delivery of the sister’s baby.

“That is not to say attempts aren’t being made, but there is no guarantee that in a life-threatening emergency situation that they’re going to be able to respond immediately,” Poloncarz said.

Hochul late Friday announced plans to deploy 54 members of the National Guard to the area. The Christmas weekend storm follows another blizzard that dumped more than 6 feet (about 1.8 meters) of snow in western and northern New York, resulting in three deaths, just over a month ago. New York often sees dramatic lake-effect snow, which is caused by cool air picking up moisture from the warm water, then releasing it in bands of windblown snow over land.

On the Ohio Turnpike, four died in a massive pileup involving some 50 vehicles A Kansas City, Missouri, driver was killed Thursday after skidding into a creek, and three others died Wednesday in separate crashes on icy northern Kansas roads.

A woman in Vermont died in a hospital Friday after a tree broke in the high winds and fell on her. Police in Colorado Springs said they found the dead body of a person who appeared to be homeless as subzero temperatures and snow descended upon the region.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said one person died in a traffic accident attributed to the weather 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 several accidents for 34 hours. The truck drivers weathered the wait in a rig outfitted with a diesel heater, a toilet and a refrigerator but nonetheless regretted trying to drive from Alabama to their home near Akron, Ohio, for Christmas.

“I wish we should have stayed," said Terry Henderson, after they got moving again Saturday. "We should have sat.”

The storm was nearly unprecedented in its scope, 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, and temperatures plummeted drastically below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, the National Weather Service said.

Freezing rain coated much of the Pacific Northwest in a layer of ice, while people in the Northeast faced the threat of coastal and inland flooding.

The frigid temperatures and gusty winds were expected to produce "dangerously cold wind chills across much of the central and eastern U.S. this holiday weekend," the weather service said, adding that the conditions "will create a potentially life-threatening hazard for travelers that become stranded."

In some areas, being outdoors could lead to frostbite in minutes," it said.

As millions of Americans were traveling ahead of Christmas, more than 5,700 flights within, into or out of the U.S. were canceled Friday, according to the tracking site FlightAware.

Multiple highways were closed and crashes claimed at least eight lives, officials said. Four people died in a massive pileup involving some 50 vehicles on the Ohio Turnpike. A Kansas City, Missouri, driver was killed Thursday after skidding into a creek, and three others died Wednesday in separate crashes on icy northern Kansas roads.

In Canada, WestJet canceled all flights Friday at Toronto Pearson International Airport, as meteorologists there warned of a potential once-in-a-decade weather event. While in Mexico, migrants camped near the U.S. border in unusually cold temperatures as they awaited a U.S. Supreme Court decision on pandemic-era restrictions that prevent many from seeking asylum.

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, including heavy winds and snow.

Even people in Florida were braced for unusually chilly weather as rare freeze warnings were issued for large parts of the state over the holiday weekend.

Activists were rushing to get homeless people out of the cold. Nearly 170 adults and children were keeping warm early Friday in Detroit at a shelter and a warming center that are designed to hold 100 people.

"This is a lot of extra people" but it wasn't an option to turn anyone away, said Faith Fowler, the executive director of Cass Community Social Services, which runs both facilities.

Emergency weather shelters in Portland, Oregon, called for volunteers amid high demand and staffing issues as snow, freezing rain, ice and frigid temperatures descended upon the area.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said she was deploying the National Guard to haul timber to the Oglala Sioux and Rosebud Sioux tribes and help with snow removal.

"We have families that are way out there that we haven't heard from in two weeks," said Wayne Boyd, chief of staff to the Rosebud Sioux president.

On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Harlie Young was huddled with five children and her father around a wood stove as 12-foot (3.6-meter) snow drifts blocked the house.

"We're just trying to look on the bright side that they're still coming and they didn't forget us," she said Friday.

Calling it a "kitchen sink storm," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency. In parts of New York City, tidal flooding inundated roads, homes and businesses Friday morning.

In Boston, rain combined with a high tide, flooded some downtown streets on Friday.