The death toll from the major storm that began over the weekend in the United States and is expected to continue through the week has risen to 50, including 27 in the state of New York, US authorities announced.
The highest number of deaths occurred in the state of New York, where at least 27 people died from the cold snap, which hit the city of Buffalo hard.
Relief organizations recovered bodies in the Buffalo area from cars, houses and ‘drifts’ of snow. Others died during snow removal or after emergency teams failed to respond to calls for help in time, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Nationwide, the storm is responsible for at least 50 deaths, and rescue efforts continue through Monday.
The governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, highlighted that it is the “most devastating” storm in the history of Buffalo, where almost 100 centimeters of snow fell.
“I cannot overstate how dangerous conditions continue to be,” Hochul warned, urging residents to avoid traveling in the coming days.
In Buffalo, the wind from Storm ‘Elliot’ blew at hurricane-like speed, preventing many relief efforts from getting where they needed to be.
The temperatures well below normal for the season that plagues the entire country will continue throughout the week, forcing the cancellation of flights and leaving the roads extremely dangerous to travel, in addition to having caused power outages in almost 1, 7 million homes and businesses
Triggered by an arctic cold front, storm ‘Eliot’ stretches from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande along the Mexican border, affecting around 60% of the US population.
Today, the temperature remains very cold in much of the eastern United States, but “there is a trend to moderate as of Tuesday,” said the National Weather Service.
According to this service, it is still “dangerous” to drive on some roads due to snow, but conditions should improve in the coming days.
The power system is being restored across the country, but about 100,000 consumers are still living in the dark, mostly in Maine and New York.
In the city of Buffalo and on the border with Canada, the weather conditions were the worst in the history of these regions, with cities completely covered in snow and airports closed.
But several of the registered deaths were also registered in areas such as Kansas, Missouri, Vermont, Colorado, Ohio and Wisconsin, according to the local press.
In several cities on the east coast and even in the state of Florida, known for its mild temperatures, the thermometers marked minimums that had not been seen for several decades.
New York City reached a minimum temperature of -10.5° Celsius (C) on Christmas Day, which had not happened since 1872, while Washington, the capital of the United States, temperatures below zero, which had not happened since 1966 .
Source: TSF
