A woman walks as snow falls during a storm in New York City on January 19, 2024, but many parts of the country have been hit by blizzard conditions.
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A woman walks as snow falls during a storm in New York City on January 19, 2024, but many parts of the country have been hit by blizzard conditions.
Severe storms hit the United States over the past week, killing at least 50 people due to the weather, US officials and media reported Friday, as large swaths of the country braced for new winter storms.
Freezing temperatures, blizzards and thick ice have caused deadly crashes on treacherous roads, disrupted air travel, closed schools and cut power to thousands, with millions of Americans under new weather warnings.
In Tennessee, the southeastern state's Department of Health confirmed 14 weather-related deaths, while five women who were returning home after performing Umrah in Mecca died on a Pennsylvania highway on Tuesday in an accident with a tractor trailer, according to police.
Five people were killed by the weather in Kentucky, while three people in Oregon were electrocuted when a live power line fell on their parked car during a snowstorm on Wednesday, the Portland Fire Department said in a statement on Friday. .
The storm left 75,000 customers in Oregon without power as of Friday evening, according to tracking site Poweroutage.us, and the state's governor declared a state of emergency.
Local media reported, citing officials in Seattle, that deaths were also reported in the states of Illinois, Kansas, New Hampshire, New York, Wisconsin, and Washington, where five people are believed to have died due to exposure.
Blizzard conditions hit several parts of the country, including the Pacific Northwest, the Rocky Mountains and parts of New England — particularly western New York, where meteorologists said about 75 inches (1.9 meters) of snow fell near Buffalo in a five-week period. days this week. .
The frigid temperatures also extended deep into the southern United States, a region not accustomed to facing such winter weather.
Parts of the country are bracing for even more brutal conditions this weekend.
“Another Arctic blast will bring cold temperatures and dangerous winds to the Plains and Mississippi Valley to the eastern United States,” the National Weather Service said Friday in its latest warning.
Air travel suffered major setbacks on Friday as well, with more than 1,100 U.S. flights canceled and another 8,000 delayed, according to Flightaware.com.
