Almost 1.5 million American homes without electricity, thousands of canceled flights, closed highways and sometimes fatal accidents: in the United States, the start of the Christmas holidays has been disrupted since this Friday by a winter storm of rare intensity.
“Historic” according to the US Weather Service (NWS), it generated heavy snowfall, icy gusts, and temperatures down to -48 ° C in places. In some states, freezing rain coupled with snow is also expected. More than 240 million people, or 70% of Americans, were affected this Friday morning by alerts or calls for caution in the country.
A nationwide storm
The storm was particularly impressive in its magnitude, stretching from the Canadian border in the north to the Mexican border in the south. Up to around 1.5 million homes were without electricity on Friday, notably in North Carolina, Maine and Virginia, according to the specialized site Poweroutage.us. They were still a million in the dark Friday night.
The phenomenon has not failed to have serious consequences on all transport, at a time when millions of Americans are flooding the roads and airports for the holiday season. The specialized site Flightaware listed Friday evening 5,500 canceled flights in the United States, the airports most affected being those of Seattle, New York, Chicago or Detroit, in the northeast of the country.
Prohibition to travel in certain regions
Several states have declared states of emergency, such as New York, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Georgia and North Carolina. With visibility close to zero, the blizzard and frost affecting much of the country, the roads have become very dangerous.
In New York State, a travel ban has been issued in Erie County. “We stay at home (…) I can’t see on the other side of the street” because of the snow, said Jennifer Orlando, affected by this ban in the city of Hamburg. She found herself without power for about four hours, she said, after a car hit a power line not far from her home.
Temperatures overnight from Friday to Saturday in this state were estimated between -20 ° C and -10 ° C for the most optimistic forecasts. Due to the wind, the feelings could reach -30°C.
“People should stay home, not venture out on the roads,” Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear warned CNN. “Your family wants to see you home for Christmas, but most of all they want to see you alive. He confirmed that three people had died on Kentucky roads. In Oklahoma, at least two people died on the road, according to local authorities.
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In Ohio, a massive collision of about 50 vehicles on a highway killed at least one person, according to local media. In Michigan, traffic on a highway was cut Friday mid-morning due to an accident involving nine tractor-trailers.
A “cyclonic bomb” in question
This storm of rare intensity is caused by a “cyclonic bomb”: a powerful conflict between two masses of air, one very cold from the Arctic and the other tropical from the Gulf of Mexico, aggravated because the pressure atmosphere fell very quickly, in less than 24 hours. This type of storm occurs “only once in a generation”, according to the US National Weather Service in Buffalo.
In Chicago, where it was around -20 ° C during the day on Friday, the homeless aid organization Night Ministry expressed concern about the number of beds made available by the city, which it said was insufficient.
“Some of the people we’re taking in now became homeless just this year,” said Major Caleb Senn, Salvation Army Chicago official. “Some are really scared. This is the first time they are at the mercy of nature with no place to go,” he insisted.