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First edit: 12/28/2022 – 01:05

Temperatures began to moderate across the east and midwest United States on Tuesday, days after Storm Elliot hit the country and claimed the lives of about 50 people.

Despite forecasts, the blizzard persists in some places. In upstate New York on Monday evening, US President Joe Biden issued a declaration of a federal emergency, authorizing assistance from the US government to support state and local recovery efforts.

Through his Twitter account he said, “I spoke with Governor Kathy Hochul to get an update on the extreme winter weather plaguing New York. We are ready to make sure they have the resources they need to get through this. My heart goes out to those who lost loved ones this holiday weekend. You’re in my prayers and Jill’s.”

In this state, authorities described devastating conditions, particularly in Buffalo, with power outages lasting several hours, bodies trapped in vehicles and under drifts of snow. Emergency personnel are still dragging bodies “from car to car” looking for survivors.

Members of the National Guard and other teams have rescued hundreds of people, but authorities said many more remain trapped.

Erie County Sheriff John Garcia called the storm “the worst” he has ever experienced, with periods of zero visibility and authorities unable to respond to emergency calls. “It was heartbreaking to get calls from families with their children saying they were freezing,” Garcia said.

Hundreds of power company employees try to restore power. Erie County Chief Executive Mark Poloncarz said on Twitter that about 4,500 customers were left without power.

In a statement to the media, Poloncarz said, “We’re recovering from the worst storm I’ve ever seen, certainly in terms of deaths at Mother Nature’s wrath,” saying the death toll in Erie would likely exceed that of the 1977 storm. of buffalo that killed nearly 30 people.

About 122,000 homes across the country were still without power, down from a peak of 1.8 million on Saturday, according to PowerOutage.us. About 72% of those still without electricity were in Oregon and California. The California-Oregon border area experienced high winds and heavy rain this week.

Road workers cleared downed trees with chainsaws and cleared snow from at least one lane so that emergency crews could cross main roads.

One of those affected, Jim Nowak, said that during the worst of the storm they looked “out the window and it blew so hard” they couldn’t “tell if the snow was piling up.”

The icy roads and stormy conditions have also temporarily shut down some of the nation’s busiest transportation routes, including part of Interstate 70, which runs across the United States.

A warning has been issued to motorists not to hit the roads, even as the country has come to the end-of-year holidays, when there is usually more commuting.

U.S. National Weather Service meteorologist Bob Oravec noted that another two inches of snow will fall in western New York on Tuesday, but that it will “probably be the last,” adding, “It will be hot soon. Maximum Thursday it will be 8 degrees”. Celsius and it will be 12 degrees on Saturday.”

Flight cancellation continues

Southwest airlines again led in flight cancellations by U.S. airlines on Tuesday with 2,589, 30 times that of Spirit Airlines, the second-largest airline with the most canceled flights.

It also canceled 2,500 flights scheduled for Wednesday and more than 1,000 flights on Thursday. Southwest shares fell 6.3% to a two-month low of $33.81.

The company has a much tighter schedule than most U.S. airlines and busier response times to cater to its network that connects large swathes of the country.

Illinois State Attorney General Kwame Raoul has called on the US Department of Transportation to adopt rules that ensure airlines provide relief to those experiencing cancellations and long delays unrelated to severe weather.

With AFP, Reuters and AP