New York Highway Patrol tries to keep the City of Buffalo afloat during the December 24th Erie County Sheriff’s Eleven-Day Storm
At least 27 people have died as a result of the storm in New York’s Erie County – many of them in Buffalo, which was buried by up to 43 inches of snow and slammed with fierce blizzard conditions that made for blinding drives over the Christmas weekend.
This storm, however, was more ferocious than the blizzard of 1977, Erie County executive Mark Poloncarz said. “It was just horrendous, and it was horrendous for 24 hours in a row.”
“Buffalo Police have provided hundreds of rescues and have rescued many stranded motorists in the city of Buffalo,” Brown said. If not for the efforts of first responders to rescue people from vehicles, some of them might not have survived.
Scores of cars were abandoned when people left during the storm, Hochul said during a Monday news conference. She said that it is still a danger to be out.
As crews continue to dig out vehicles in snow, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul stressed the importance of obeying local and state driving bans. Buffalo, Lackawanna and Cheektowaga all remain under driving bans during the overnight hours.
The Big Blast: How much snow is there, and how many deaths have been caused by extreme weather in the U.S. during the past few days
I have a bad feeling about that. The death toll is going to increase, according to the sheriff. It is gut-wrenching when you have unanswered calls from the EMTs.
The mayor told us that his own home was without power and the temperature inside went down to 40 degrees, causing his family to layer up.
Hochul reported that getting the lights back on was difficult because of the dangerous weather conditions that made it difficult to access the substations.
This year’s surge of year-end holiday travelers is expected to push toward pre-pandemic levels . But many people’s plans were frustrated by the major arctic blast that plunged much of the nation into frigid temperatures last week and continued to batter parts of the Upper Midwest and Northeast with heavy snow and blizzard conditions over the weekend.
Many cities and towns remain covered with thick snow. Over separate 24-hour spans, Baraga, Michigan, received 42.8 inches of snow while Henderson Harbor, New York, got 40.8 inches.
More than 15,000 flights within, into or out of the US were canceled between Thursday and Christmas day, while thousands more were delayed at airports from Atlanta to Las Vegas.
The Buffalo Niagara International Airport is closed until late Wednesday morning due to the extreme weather conditions that have seen 43 inches of snow. Pittsburgh International Airport is now sending snow equipment to Buffalo Airport to assist with reopening the airfield, according to a news release Monday.
Colorado Springs Police reported that there were two deaths related to the cold in the last few days, one near a power transformer and the other a camp in an alleyway.
• Ohio: Nine people have died due to weather related crashes, including four who were killed when a tractor-trailer crossed the median on I-75 and hit a SUV and pickup.
Travel Stories of Hurricane Campagna: From Strutched Tour Groups to Strangers Who Driven on a Long Haul to the Falls
There is a chance of up to seven more inches of snow in Buffalo over the next few days. However, temperatures will be slightly higher than they have been in previous days, with a high of 30 degrees in the daytime and a low of 26 at night.
Hochul said Monday that the state has stockpiled ready-to-eat meals and “thousands” are ready to be distributed to food banks but noted that road conditions are paralyzing aid efforts.
We have a obligation to have all of the resources on hand. When mother nature shuts down and creates a wall that you can not see, it is not safe for emergency vehicles, and the trucks that are bringing groceries to the stores and the stores are being shutdown anyhow.
The request for a federal emergency declaration was made by the governor, who said it would be crucial to assist the recovery efforts from the storm.
They were among the thousands of Southwest Airlines passengers who had their flights canceled over the weekend.
From stranded tour groups to strangers brought together on a long-haul drive, here are the stories of travelers who grappled with the chaotic Christmas weekend’s travel woes.
When Alexander Campagna heard a knock on his door while the storm was raging outside, he thought it might be a neighbor or his father-in-law who lives close to his home near Buffalo, New York, he told CNN.
A group of South Korean tourists were stuck in snow on their way to the Falls and decided to dig their bus out using shovels on the steps.
An invitation to stay with family and friends in the aftermath of a storm, and what they told them during their visit to the Niagara Falls, Washington, DC, airport
“I thought of something else.” This could be very serious and deadly,'” Campagna said. So he and his wife Andrea invited the 10-person group to wait out the storm in their home, communicating with three members of the group who spoke English, he said.
When our guests first got to our house, there was a belief that a storm was about to blow over and they’d just jump back in their cars and go towards the Falls, which is in the best weather. It may as well have been in another part of the universe.
Once the reality of their situation began to set in, Campagna went digging in the freezer for anything that might be able to keep the small crowd fed. Soon, the couple’s stock of frozen chicken and a pork shoulder was put to use.
Several guests said that they’re more than welcome to visit them. We may have to accept that offer. We were really close with them. She said that they became like a family to them.
While the couple was thankful for their guests, they were also appreciative of the volunteers and emergency personnel who spent the day and night taking care of people trapped in their cars in the cold.
On Christmas day, the police department used a SWAT bus and a school bus to take the tourists to a hotel in Niagara Falls to “await the next leg of their journey back to Washington D.C.” The release said so.
The bus, which was headed to Washington, DC, had driven off the road and become lodged in the snow just a foot away from a ditch, leaving the vehicle at risk of slipping and flipping over with about 60 people inside, City of North Tonawanda Police Chief Keith Glass said in a release
While the officers tried to drive small groups of the tourists to a nearby warming station, their pickup truck kept getting stuck in the intensifying storm, Glass said.
“They ended up literally lining these people up and walking them from the bus to the warming station,” he told CNN. Glass said the group was unharmed after walking a mile through the snow.
A group of travelers were confused and desperate on Thursday when their flight from Florida to Cleveland was canceled. Someone asked if they would rent a car and make the drive together as they talked about their options at the airport.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/winter-storm-elliott-travel-stories/index.html
On the journey of a 40-hour family to Disney World and Disney Studios: a case study on a video by Schuster and Radcliffe on TikTok
Soon, Bridget Schuster, Greg Henry, Shobi Maynard and Abby Radcliffe had stuffed into a car and were on their way in what became a 20-hour drive to get home for the holidays. The roadtrip escapades were chronicled on her TikTok, with Schuster getting nearly 10 million views on her first video.
“I believe that a lot of the time people can just see the bad in people.” He said that they had that connection because they needed to go back home to visit their families. Maybe give them a chance.
On Christmas eve, the Perkins family was ready to board a plane in Las Vegas for a trip to Disney World and Disney Studios in Florida.
Perkins said that she and her family were devastated when they were told that suitcases and car seats wouldn’t be returned to them, only to be told that they would still be sent to the airport.
She said that they were turned away without their luggage and car seats for their two young children.
She added that they were told their luggage was at the Las Vegas airport, but have still not been reunited with their bags, which contain Christmas gifts from Santa.