The situation is still particularly bad around the city of Buffalo in western New York state. The blizzard has been paralyzing the city for some time and relief efforts are no longer able to reach the most affected areas. “It’s like entering a war zone,” New York State Gov. Kathy Hochul, herself a Buffalo resident, said Sunday.
He called the image of the many vehicles stranded on the side of the road in the city “shocking”. The height of the snow cover in Buffalo reaches more than two meters in some places. Large-scale power outages have created dangerous conditions.
“Endangered”
Hochul told reporters on Sunday that Buffalo residents are still facing a “very dangerous and life-threatening situation.” She warned everyone in the area to stay indoors and called the current storm “the most destructive storm in Buffalo’s long history,” according to CNN. Authorities in Erie County, which includes Buffalo, said the city’s death toll rose to 12 on Sunday.
As of Christmas Day, approximately 250,000 homes and businesses in several eastern US states were still without electricity. Half of them were in the states of New York and Maine. Additionally, due to last weekend’s extreme weather, countless holidaymakers were stranded and thousands of flights were cancelled. Temperatures in the US should finally warm up again later in the week.