Jeremy Manahan in Buffalo, New York, was driving in a snow storm without electricity over 24 hours of the year 1977 Erie County storm

Many people died in the storm that hit Erie County, New York, over the Christmas and New Year’s weekend, and it was buried by as much as 43 inches of snow.

When emergency crews couldn’t get to the two people in the suburb of Cheektowaga in time to treat them, they died.

This storm, however, was more ferocious than the blizzard of 1977, Erie County executive Mark Poloncarz said. For 24 hours in a row, it was horrendous.

Emergency workers rescued people from cars as darkness fell on Saturday, some of them trapped since Friday. Some residents were prepared to spend another sleepless night at home without electricity because there wasn’t a safe way to reach shelter other than in their homes.

Freezing conditions and day-old power outages had Buffalonians scrambling Saturday to get out of their homes to anywhere that had heat. But with city streets under a thick blanket of white, that wasn’t an option for people like Jeremy Manahan, who charged his phone in his parked car after almost 29 hours without electricity.

The struggles were complicated by drivers ignoring travel ban and getting stuck, blocking roads cleared for emergency traffic.

The Cold Weather Forecast in the Eastern U.S. after the First Day of December 18th: New York City, Baltimore, and Bluefield

County officials urged people to stay put, even without heat or power, and asked the National Guard to assist with rescue operations. Buffalo-Niagara International Airport is closed until Monday, said Kathy Hochul, the governor of New York.

While Tommy Bellonte was out of his home in Buffalo on Saturday to check on a neighbor, people were asking if he was from Buffalo. You can not get used to it.

65 million people across the eastern U.S. were warned of possible rolling power cuts after the storm knocked out power from Maine to Seattle.

Temperatures plunged into the single digits in central, southern and eastern states as the massive weather system swept north into Canada and frigid Arctic air settled in behind it. The cold set records for Christmas Eve in some places across the country, including in Baltimore, where the temperature plummeted to 8 degrees, and in Bluefield, W.Va., where it bottomed out at minus 9.

The storm surge that hit New York City on Friday left many beachfront dwellers facing the threat of leaving home for Christmas.

Ohio: Nine people died as a result of weather-related crashes, including four who died in a Saturday morning collision on I-75 when a tractor trailer crossed the median and hit an SUV and a pickup.

After spending the night in their homes in the sub-zero temperature, many people went to warming shelters in fire stations and school gymnasiums.

After a day without power, Shantel Moncrief and her husband attempted to sleep in their apartment in south Nashville on Friday night layered in sweaters and blankets. They went to sleep too cold to rest, so they went to her mother’s house at 6 a.m.

Con Edison Asks Snow Weather Customers to Conserve Energy: Frank Ellis, a New York City City Police Officer, and his Christmas Eve Trip

The storm has made for delays and cancelations for travelers on holidays across the country. Southwest Airlines canceled 70% of its flights on Monday and was still canceling more than half of its flights Tuesday.

At La Guardia Airport in New York, more than 50 flights were canceled Saturday morning, and travelers prepared to spend Christmas Eve at the airport or in nearby hotels.

Dan and Misty Ellis went to the airport with their teenage children. Hours later, their flight was canceled, and each member of the family was rebooked on a different flight, said Mr. Ellis.

The family decided to rent a car instead and drive 14 hours to their home in Nashville. The cost would be hefty, Mr. Ellis said, but he did not mind paying it.

As darkness fell in Western New York on Saturday and temperatures crept even lower, thousands of utility workers and plow drivers faced another long night of work to restore power and clear roads. With snow forecast to continue, and travel bans still in effect, stores were empty of last-minute shoppers, and streets mostly silent.

Frank Anderson, 50, was stuck in deep snow in his large white pickup truck on Saturday for the second time since wrapping up his shift as a prison guard.

Still wearing his work jacket with a New York State Corrections and Community Supervision emblem on his left sleeve and with only a spare sweater in the back seat, he found his truck jammed along Hertel Avenue, his tires spinning on ice, as he attempted to make it back to his wife and three children in time for Christmas. He was about “a mile from home” in the suburb of Tonawanda.

He said that he was going to miss Christmas with his people as he sat in the middle of a road filled with feet of snow.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/12/24/us/winter-storm-snow-weather/con-edison-asks-new-york-city-customers-to-conserve-energy

Ditjak Ilunga and his wife Cindy in Buffalo, Michigan, walked through the wind and snow on Christmas Eve. His car was buried in the snow

Euan Ward , Eliza Fawcett , Isabella Grullón Paz , Bob Chiarito, Jamie McGee, Ellen Yan, April Rubin, Sharon Dunten and Maria Jimenez Moya contributed reporting.

It is a bomb cyclollia, which develops when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm, causing a lot of trouble, including heavy winds and snow.

“There’s one warming shelter, but that would be too far for me to get to. I can’t drive, obviously, because I’m stuck,” Manahan said. “And you can’t be outside for more than 10 minutes without getting frostbit.”

We can’t just pick you up and take you to a warming center. “We don’t have the ability of doing that,” Poloncarz said. “Many, many neighborhoods, especially in the city of Buffalo, are still impassable.”

Ditjak Ilunga of Gaithersburg, Maryland, was on his way to visit relatives in Hamilton, Ontario, for Christmas with his daughters Friday when their SUV was trapped in Buffalo. They spent hours in the vehicle with the engine running and almost buried in the snow as they were unable to get help.

By 4 a.m. Saturday, with their fuel nearly gone, Ilunga made a desperate choice to risk the howling storm to reach a nearby shelter. He carried both of them on his back, and Cindy held their dog as they walked through the snow.

He thought about how he would die with his kids if he stayed in the car. He cried when the family walked through the shelter doors. It’s something I will never forget.

The Kentucky Church as an Emergency Shelter and Kitchen for the Crossing of Interstate Highway 71 into the U.S. Border on Saturday, Dec. 27

More than 273,000 customers were without power in New England on Saturday, with Maine being the hardest hit. Some utilities said electricity may not be restored for days.

Migrants camped near the U.S. border with Mexico were in need of a warm place to stay, awaiting a decision on whether they would be allowed to seek asylum.

Along Interstate 71 in Kentucky, Terry Henderson and her husband, Rick, weathered a 34-hour traffic jam in a rig outfitted with a diesel heater, a toilet and a refrigerator after getting stuck trying to drive from Alabama to their Ohio home for Christmas.

Buffalo got another 1.6 inches of snowfall on Tuesday, bringing the snowfall total from Friday up to 51.9 inches, and the month of December total up to 64.7 inches, according to the National Weather Service.

According to Robinson, the church has been used as an emergency shelter and kitchen since Saturday night, with 60 to 70 people there, including travelers with no power or heat.

Many arrived with ice and snow plastered to their clothes, crying, their skin reddened by the single-digit temperatures. They were going to celebrate Christmas together on Saturday night.

It was emotional to see the hurt they felt and to see that we opened the church and gave them some comfort, Robinson said. People who are here are having a good time. It’s going to be different for everyone.

The Buffalo Fire Department is preparing to respond to a “generational storm” caused by a large-scale wind event over the holiday weekend

There was a winter weather advisory for about 60% of the US population over the holiday weekend. Drastically low temperatures were seen from the Great Lakes to the Rio Grande.

“Buffalo Police have provided hundreds of rescues and have rescued many stranded motorists in the city of Buffalo,” Brown said. If it weren’t for the efforts of first responders to rescue them from vehicles, some people may not have survived.

“This has been called a generational storm — a once-in-a-generation storm,” Brown said. “It’s unlike anything that even the city of Buffalo is used to getting.”

We will continue to work with National Grid all day today to get everyone’s power restored and the number has been reduced to below 10,000.

Communities from coast to coast have lost power over the course of the week, but the worst of rolling blackouts appeared to have subsided. The PJM interconnection said that utilities could meet the day’s demand after initially asking 65 million customers to conserve energy.

Officials said that work is underway to clear snowbanks to prevent flooding, as temperatures are expected to rise throughout the rest of the week. Up to two inches of rainfall are also forecast over the next five days, which could lead to excessive snow melt.

The NWS still advises caution for anyone looking to venture outside: High wind speeds and low temperatures are a recipe for frostbite, which can take root in less than 10 minutes of exposure.

Snow in Buffalo, New York, lasted 24 hours over the last 48 hours, with two deaths found in an alleyway and Baraga, Michigan,

Hundreds of vehicles were left abandoned in the snow as the storm howled in Buffalo, according to New York State Police Acting Superintendent Steven Nigrelli. He said authorities were going door-to-door and car-to-car to check for people.

A driving ban remained in effect in Buffalo amid a two-day effort to clear at least one lane on every street to accommodate emergency responders, Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said at a news conference.

“I have a bad feeling about that. I think the death toll is going to go up,” the sheriff said. “When you have 420 EMS calls that are unanswered, it’s just gut-wrenching.”

And getting the lights back on has been no easy task, as utility crews are faced with dangerous weather conditions that made accessing the substations difficult, according to Hochul.

Many cities and towns remain covered with thick snow. Over separate 24-hour spans, Baraga, Michigan, received 42.8 inches of snow while Henderson Harbor, New York, got 40.8 inches.

Colorado Springs police reported two deaths related to the cold in the last 48 hours, one of which was found near a transformer, the other in an alleyway.

The area of New York that had the most winter storm warnings over the weekend are still under winter weather advisories.

The Buffalo, New York, Disaster Afternoon During the 19-Year Buffalo Winter Storm: Emergency Services, Weather System, and Emergency Response

Hochul stated that the state has prepared thousands of ready-to- eat meals but noted that the road conditions make it difficult to give aid.

“We have a responsibility to have all these resources on hand. But, when mother nature literally shuts down and creates a wall that you cannot see past, it is not safe, for not just emergency vehicles, but the trucks that are bringing groceries to the stores and the stores are being shutdown anyhow – that is the paralysis we’re experiencing,” Hochul said.

She said it would be crucial to assist our recovery efforts from this historic storm, that she submitted a request to President Joe Biden for a federal emergency declaration.

The city of Buffalo was described as “impassesable” by Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz.

People are trying to drive around the snow in little Honda Civics because there’s huge dump trucks that are trying to scoop up the snow.

While Tuesday’s forecast seems insignificant compared to the amount of snow that fell over the last few days, officials say that it will have an effect on the response to the storm.

The weather system that brought 49 inches of snow over three days at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport is one of the most epic in New York’s history, according to the governor.

The DOT said it would look into the cancellation, delays, and customer service response to see if they were controllable.

After a deadly winter storm roared through Buffalo, New York that left many dead, calls for assistance went unanswered, but now the emergency services have been restored.

“We have people that got stranded in their vehicles and passed away in their cars. We have people that were walking during blizzard conditions and passed away on the street, passed away in snowbanks,” Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown said. “And we have people that were found that passed away in their homes.”

Two-thirds of the equipment that was dispatched to help clear winter snow during the height of the storm got stuck, Poloncarz told CNN Monday. The Buffalo Fire Department historian said this was the first time in their agency’s history that they could not respond to emergency calls because of how severe the conditions were, Poloncarz added.

Hundreds of unanswered calls for assistance were reported by the Erie County Sheriff as the storm hit, and officials were focusing on getting people to hospitals as the roads were cleared.

After the family lost contact with her, they posted her location to a Buffalo Facebook page and a man called to say he found her and she had no pulse.

By the time authorities called the Brown family back on Monday evening to let them know they were ready to go out and rescue the woman, her body had already been removed from the car and transported to the hospital, the family said.

The New York City Planned for a Winter Storm, and Its Effects on Looting in Franconia, New Hampshire

The county is also bringing in 100 military police, as well as additional troops from the New York State Police Department, to manage traffic control “because it has become so evident that too many people are ignoring the ban,” Poloncarz said.

• New Hampshire: A hiker was found dead in Franconia on Christmas morning, Lt. James Kneeland, a spokesperson for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, said.

The National Weather Service stated that the risk of flooding is small due to the melting of snow. The weather service said that it would take around an inch of rain from the system before flooding becomes a concern.

Still, Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services Daniel Neaverth said city officials are working with the National Weather Service “not only to reflect back on what happened this past week, but also what potentially could come.”

All major highways across Western New York, including NYS Thruway were open by Tuesday – “a sign that we are finally turning the corner on this once-in-a-generation storm,” Hochul said.

As roadways are cleared, officials were also working to coordinate deliveries of fuel to emergency crews and grocery supplies to markets, according to Poloncarz.

“After the height of the storm, we were getting requests from local municipalities to help them with their trucks for diesel,” Poloncarz said. “And we were getting specialized deliveries to communities that may have been running out so that their trucks could stay on the road at all times.”

The officials have been dealing with loot reports. The Buffalo Police Department said on Tuesday that eight people had been arrested in connection with suspected winter storm loot.

Mayor Brown said, “It is horrible that residents of our community have died in the storm, and people are out looting.” But he noted that “this is a minority of individuals.”