A fearsome winter storm continued to pummel parts of the US with blizzard conditions on Saturday night after powerful Arctic winds left nearly 1.7 million people without power earlier in the day and caused Christmas travel nightmares.
At least 17 weather-related deaths have been confirmed across eight states as heavy snow, howling winds and dangerously frigid temperatures kept much of the nation, including the normally temperate south, in a frozen grip for a third straight day.
In hard-hit New York state, Governor Kathy Hochul deployed the National Guard to Erie County and its main city Buffalo, where authorities said emergency services were not functioning.
Photo: Kevin Hoak / Reuters
Late on Saturday, the US National Weather Service said that blizzard conditions in the Great Lakes region caused by lake-effect snow would continue yesterday, and that there would be “only slow moderation of temperatures into Monday [today].”
One couple in Buffalo, which sits across the border from Canada, said that with the roads completely impassible, they would not be making a 10-minute drive to see their family for Christmas.
“It’s tough because the conditions are just so bad ... a lot of fire departments aren’t even sending out trucks for calls,” 40-year-old Rebecca Bortolin said.
The “bomb cyclone” winter storm, one of the fiercest in decades, had already forced the cancelation of more than 3,300 US flights on Saturday and the delay of nearly 7,500 more, a day after nearly 6,000 were scrapped, according to tracking Web site Flightaware.com.
US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg wrote on Twitter that “the most extreme disruptions are behind us as airline and airport operations gradually recover” — words that travelers stranded at airports including Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Detroit and New York were holding on to.
Road ice and white-out conditions also led to the closure of some of the nation’s busiest transport routes, including the cross-country Interstate 70, parts of which were temporarily shut down in Colorado and Kansas.
At one point during the day, nearly 1.7 million customers were without electricity, tracker poweroutage.us showed.
Canadian authorities have also issued severe weather warnings. Hundreds of thousands were left without power in Ontario and Quebec provinces, while many flights were canceled in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.
VIA Rail, Canada’s passenger service, said that all trains from Toronto to Ottawa and Montreal would be suspended on Christmas Day due to a train derailment, while “extreme weather conditions” forced many other cancelations.
UPDATED (3:40pm): A suspected gas explosion at a shopping mall in Taichung this morning has killed four people and injured 20 others, as emergency responders continue to investigate. The explosion occurred on the 12th floor of the Shin Kong Mitsukoshi in Situn District (西屯) at 11:33am. One person was declared dead at the scene, while three people were declared deceased later after receiving emergency treatment. Another 20 people sustained major or minor injuries. The Taichung Fire Bureau said it received a report of the explosion at 11:33am and sent rescuers to respond. The cause of the explosion is still under investigation, it said. The National Fire
ACCOUNTABILITY: The incident, which occured at a Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Department Store in Taichung, was allegedly caused by a gas explosion on the 12th floor Shin Kong Group (新光集團) president Richard Wu (吳昕陽) yesterday said the company would take responsibility for an apparent gas explosion that resulted in four deaths and 26 injuries at Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Zhonggang Store in Taichung yesterday. The Taichung Fire Bureau at 11:33am yesterday received a report saying that people were injured after an explosion at the department store on Section 3 of Taiwan Boulevard in Taichung’s Situn District (西屯). It sent 56 ambulances and 136 paramedics to the site, with the people injured sent to Cheng Ching Hospital’s Chung Kang Branch, Wuri Lin Shin Hospital, Taichung Veterans General Hospital or Chung
‘TAIWAN-FRIENDLY’: The last time the Web site fact sheet removed the lines on the US not supporting Taiwanese independence was during the Biden administration in 2022 The US Department of State has removed a statement on its Web site that it does not support Taiwanese independence, among changes that the Taiwanese government praised yesterday as supporting Taiwan. The Taiwan-US relations fact sheet, produced by the department’s Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs, previously stated that the US opposes “any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means.” In the updated version published on Thursday, the line stating that the US does not support Taiwanese independence had been removed. The updated
‘LAWFUL USE’: The last time a US warship transited the Taiwan Strait was on Oct. 20 last year, and this week’s transit is the first of US President Donald Trump’s second term Two US military vessels transited the Taiwan Strait from Sunday through early yesterday, the Ministry of National Defense said in a statement, the first such mission since US President Donald Trump took office last month. The two vessels sailed south through the Strait, the ministry said, adding that it closely monitored nearby airspace and waters at the time and observed nothing unusual. The ministry did not name the two vessels, but the US Navy identified them as the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Ralph Johnson and the Pathfinder-class survey ship USNS Bowditch. The ships carried out a north-to-south transit from
RSS