Extreme weather has not yet abandoned North America, with fears that the storm affecting Buffalo is not over and a “strong moisture surge” threatening to deliver flash floods to the Pacific Northwest and California on Tuesday.
After days of deadly blizzards that have disrupted North America, parts of the United States might receive another 12 inches of snow, as New York’s governor warned: “We know the storm is coming again.”
At least 57 people have died as a result of the storm in the United States, while four more were killed in Canada when a bus overturned on ice roads in British Columbia.
In the United States, 28 deaths occurred in the state of New York, with the majority occurring in Erie County, where the major city of Buffalo has been severely affected.
President Joe Biden has authorized government assistance for the state of New York, where tens of thousands of people are without power due to the storm.
Temperatures have fallen below normal from east of the Rocky Mountains to the Appalachians, leaving residents of cities such as Jackson, Mississippi, without water owing to frozen pipe bursts.
According to NBC News, desperate Buffalo residents rushed to Facebook groups requesting assistance.
One individual requested more disposable diapers for twin infants, while another requested medicine for a sick kid. Several folks made urgent requests for formula milk for babies.
A resident in Buffalo with four young children wrote: “We’re running dangerously low on food and are trapped inside… When I looked outside and saw that it was snowing more, I began to feel anxious.”
Sunday evening, police in the city reported “isolated” acts of looting.
Mark Poloncarz, the executive of Erie County, described the blizzard as “perhaps the worst storm in our generation” and cautioned, “This is not the end.”
He stated that some people had been left in their vehicles for more than two days, with rescue personnel difficult to reach those in need due to the awful weather.
During the weekend, New York Governor Kathy Hochul stated that many of the state’s ambulances and fire trucks were stuck in the snow, and Buffalo police issued an online call for snowmobile owners to assist.
On Monday, she described the storm as “one for the ages,” saying that it and another large snowstorm a month earlier had brought nearly as much snow as the region could anticipate for the entire winter.
People who abandoned their vehicles in search of warmth and safety are now attempting to locate them, as the snow has buried many of them.
The National Weather Service (NWS) said that 2 to 3 inches of snow were falling every hour in the Buffalo area, with Jefferson and northern Lewis counties receiving up to 2 feet. Monday morning, the snow depth at Buffalo Airport was approximately 50 inches (1.27 meters).
The NWS reported that the weather was particularly hazardous due to the low temperatures and even lower wind chills, which posed a threat to stranded travelers and persons who work outside.
As the snow melts, it is anticipated that more deaths will be discovered; several of the verified fatalities were persons who froze to death in their vehicles.
Some people perished while shoveling snow, while others perished because ambulances were unable to reach them in time to attend to medical problems.
Many stores in Buffalo are closed and residents have been advised not to travel, prompting some to appeal for donations of food and other necessities.
Forecasters warned of a “potential surge of rain” into the Pacific Northwest and California on Tuesday, threatening flash floods, indicating that Upstate New York was not the only place expected to be in danger.
In addition, the storm knocked out power in communities ranging from Maine in the northeast to Seattle in the southwest.
Nationwide, storm-related fatalities have been reported, including at least eight crashes in Missouri, Kansas, and Kentucky. A woman also perished after falling through the ice of a Wisconsin river.
According to the flight tracking website FlightAware, approximately 4,000 flights were canceled on Monday, with cancellations at Southwest Airlines accounting for 70 percent of total flight cancellations.
In the meantime, about 70,000 households and businesses remained without electricity.
