US: Death toll from winter storm rises

Rescue workers expect more victims. In some places, temperatures dropped to minus 40 degrees.

Meanwhile, the winter storm “Elliot” has been moving across the USA for around three days. At least 30 people have already died as a result of the extreme weather conditions, with most of the fatalities being caused by car accidents.

According to US media, more than 30 people died as a result of the winter storm. The NBC broadcaster, citing its own count, even reported 41 fatalities, the ABC broadcaster at least 39. Rescue workers and officials expect the number of victims to continue to rise.

A “devastating” storm

The scale of the storm, with blizzards, freezing rain, flooding and life-threatening temperature drops, was almost unprecedented. Weather warnings applied to about 60 percent of the US population. Under these circumstances, one could get frostbite outdoors within minutes, warned the weather service.

At least 13 deaths were reported yesterday in New York State alone. There, Governor Kathy Hochul spoke of a “devastating” storm. The city of Buffalo was particularly affected. There the wind reached hurricane strength, visibility in the middle of the snow desert dropped to practically zero. Emergency services were also paralyzed; several people died in medical emergencies because they could not be reached and treated in time, an Erie County spokesman said. New York Gov. Hochul said nearly all fire trucks in Buffalo were stuck.

In some states, temperatures have dropped to around minus 45 degrees Celsius since Friday. The cold zone stretched from the Great Lakes down to the Rio Grande on the Mexican border, affecting millions of people. Even in notoriously sunny Florida, there were frosts. In West Palm Beach, for example, only six degrees were measured, where iguanas fell from the trees. The cold-blooded reptiles are unable to move when it is cold.

In some cases almost two million households without electricity

Hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses from the east to the west coast were temporarily without power. Fewer than 200,000 homes were without power as of late Sunday afternoon EST, down from 1.7 million at the peak of the outages, according to website poweroutage.us. However, the utility companies said that temporary shutdowns can continue to be expected in the coming days.

As a result of the winter storm, there was massive disruption to road, rail and air traffic. Thousands of flights had to be canceled completely, on Saturday alone there were more than 3,000. Almost 8,000 connections were delayed.

More snowfall expected on Great Lakes

The situation in most states is gradually calming down. According to the US Weather Service, the center of the Arctic cold front has now shifted north and is now over eastern Canada. However, in the region around the Great Lakes in the north-east of the USA, which is still badly affected, further heavy snowfall is to be expected, which will be accompanied by strong gusts of wind. This could result in blizzard-like conditions.

Winter storm in the US: “Life-threatening” cold front