- At least 16 killed in weather-related car crash
- More than 2,700 US flights were canceled on Saturday.
- Around 500 motorcyclists were stranded in their vehicles on Friday night.
An arctic blast swept much of the United States on Saturday, leaving more than 700,000 without power, killing at least 16 in weather-related car crashes and stranding thousands with canceled flights. are
Falling temperatures were expected to hit records on Christmas Eve. Power systems across the country were strained due to increased heat demand and damage to transmission lines from the storm.
The latest outage numbers are a sharp drop in the 1.8 million U.S. homes and businesses that remained without power as of Saturday morning, according to the tracking site Poweroutage.us.
Many electric companies continue to ask consumers to turn off large appliances and save energy by turning off unnecessary lights.
By late Saturday afternoon, Duke Energy told customers it had ended the 15-30 minute rolling blackouts across North and South Carolina that it had started earlier in the day until additional power was restored. Not available.
Daily routines and vacation plans were disrupted for millions of Americans during one of the busiest travel periods of the year.
More than 2,700 Americans Flights According to FlightAware, a flight tracking service, there were more cancellations on Saturday, with more than 6,400 total delays. More than 5,000 flights were canceled on Friday, FlightAware said.
gave American The Automobile Association estimated that 112.7 million people would travel 50 miles (80 km) or more from home between December 23 and January 2.
According to media reports, at least 16 people have been killed in weather-related car accidents and hundreds are stranded on snow and icy roads.
Up in Erie County, New York, nearly 500 motorcyclists were trapped in their vehicles from Friday night into Saturday morning. Erie County Executive Mark Polon-Carz told media that the National Guard was called in to help with the rescue. At least one person was found dead in the car, he said.
“There is nowhere to go; everything is closed, so just stay at home,” he said. MSNBC.
Two motorcyclists were killed and several others injured in a 50-vehicle pileup that closed the Ohio Turnpike in both directions during a snowstorm near Toledo, forcing stranded motorists to be evacuated by bus. frozenofficials said.
On Saturday, three deaths were reported in Kentucky, where Gov. Andy Beshear warned residents, “Stay home, stay safe, stay alive.”
“I know it’s really difficult because it’s Christmas Eve. But we have dozens and dozens of accidents,” he said in an online briefing. “It’s just not safe.”
The National Weather Service (NWS) said Saturday that a blizzard condition remained in place for Buffalo, New York and surrounding counties along the shores of Lake Erie in far western New York, where 4 to 6 feet of snow will fall by Sunday. .
The city imposed a driving ban Friday that remained in effect Saturday, and all three Buffalo-area border crossing bridges were closed to traffic from Canada.
Temperatures in Pittsburgh were forecast to top out at just 7 degrees Fahrenheit (minus-13 Celsius) on Saturday, the NWS said, just shy of the city’s previous all-time coldest Christmas of 13, set in 1983. is greater than F.
Cities in Georgia and South Carolina — Athens and Charleston — were similarly expected to record their coldest day temperatures on Christmas Eve. Washington, D.C., was forecast to have its coldest December 24th since 1989.
A shake-up of Yuletide temperature records was predicted as deep freezes from dangerous wind chills blanketed the eastern two-thirds of the country.
Ashton Robinson-Cook, a meteorologist at the NWS Weather Prediction Center, said the cold snap will continue through Christmas.
Minneapolis was the coldest place in the US on Saturday at minus 6 degrees Fahrenheit. On Christmas morning, the coldest spot will be Fargo, North Dakota, at minus 20, Cook said.
He said it will begin to moderate across the U.S. from west to east, with the high plains and central America returning to normal by Tuesday, but it won’t warm up on the East Coast until Thursday or Friday.
“For now, it’s staying cold,” he said.
The severe weather has forced officials across the country to open warming centers in libraries and police stations while scrambling to expand temporary shelters for the homeless. The challenge has been compounded by the influx of thousands of migrants crossing the US southern border in recent weeks.
The National Weather Service said its map of current or impending weather hazards “shows one of the largest ranges of winter weather warnings and advisories ever recorded.”