A major winter storm of ice and snow that has affected two-thirds of the United States has left at least six people dead and caused power outages during the day in more than one million homes.
Since the storm began, there has been one death in Texas, two in Louisiana and three in New York, all from hypothermia, according to The Washington Post.
Winter storm leaves six dead
The three deceased in New York appeared to be homeless and were found in the open, local authorities said.
During the day, the specialized website poweroutage.us showed that there were more than one million outages.
However, at 21:41 local time (2:41 GMT), the website showed that only 870,735 households were affected by the outages.
The ice wreaked havoc on household electricity especially in the southern United States. The hardest hit state was Tennessee, where more than 300,000 customers, about 9% of the state, were still without power Sunday night, according to poweroutage.us.
More than 125,000 customers were without power in Mississippi and Louisiana.
Worst day of flight cancellations since the pandemic
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the major storm has caused the worst day of flight cancellations since the covid-19 pandemic in 2020 with more than 11,000 cancellations and 17,000 delays.
In an interview with Fox, Duffy said that, by Monday, there will be some 2,600 flight cancellations.
“We hope it will improve, but what you see is that the airlines are dealing with this massive delay,” noted the Transportation Secretary, who pointed out that “we have to work on that accumulated delay and maintain the current flight structure for the next few days, whether it’s Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.”
However, the secretary stressed that “there is no capacity in the airlines to relocate two and a half days of people on airplanes”.
“One of the problems is that it’s going to continue to be cold in the South and Southwest through Tuesday or Wednesday. But in the Midwest and north, it’s going to be until the end of the week before those temperatures start to rise. So where we have ice, it’s harder to get back to being fully functional quickly,” he said.
The Secretary of Transportation also noted that not only are airports specifically being affected by this storm, but also U.S. highways.
“New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut have closed their roads to commercial transportation. We have 17 states along this swath of the storm that have closed lanes so we can get snowplows through and pour salt and many of these states have reduced speed limits on our highways,” Duffy explained.
Emergency protocols
In turn, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, has asked the population of the more than 20 states that have activated emergency protocols to avoid leaving their homes and has assured that the Federal Government is cooperating with states and electric companies to expedite repairs to the electric grid as soon as possible in the face of the even more intense cold that is approaching.
Many areas of the East Coast had received 15 to 40 centimeters of snow and sleet, and more snow and significant amounts of ice are expected to accumulate through Monday.
By Monday morning, the largest accumulations will likely be in an area that includes parts of Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who helped shovel snow off the streets of the Big Apple on Sunday, announced that there will be no on-site classes on Monday.
“It will be an away day for New York City schools to ensure everyone’s safety in the face of adverse weather conditions,” the mayor noted in a statement.
Filed under: Winter storm leaves six dead
With information from EFE
