Washington, Dec. 25 (BNA): An Arctic blast that has hit much of the United States has left more than 700,000 people without power, at least 16 killed in weather-related car accidents and thousands stranded due to flight cancellations.
The sharp drop in temperatures is expected to lead to the coldest Christmas Eve on record, and power systems across the country have been strained by increased heat demand and storm damage to transmission lines, according to Reuters.
The latest blackout numbers are a sharp decline from the 1.8 million American homes and businesses left without power.
Many electric companies continued to ask customers to conserve energy by not turning on large appliances and turning off non-essential lights.
More than 2,700 US flights were canceled Saturday, with delays totaling more than 6,400, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. FlightAware said more than 5,000 flights were canceled on Friday.
The American Automobile Association has estimated that 112.7 million people will venture 50 miles (80 km) or more from home between December 23 and January 2. But the inclement weather heading into the weekend likely ended up keeping a lot of people indoors.
Weather-related car accidents across the country have killed at least 16 people and stranded hundreds on roads covered in ice and snow, according to media reports.
In Erie County, upstate New York, about 500 motorists were stranded in their vehicles Friday night through Saturday morning, with the National Guard called in to assist with rescue operations, Erie County Executive Mark Boloncars told the media. He said that one person was found dead in a car.
“There’s nowhere for anyone to go, everything is locked down, so just stay home,” he told MSNBC.
Two motorists were killed, and several others injured, in a 50-vehicle pileup that closed the Ohio Turnpike in both directions during a blizzard near Toledo, officials said, forcing stranded motorists to take a bus to prevent them from freezing.
Three deaths have been reported in Kentucky, where Gov. Andy Beshear on Saturday warned residents to, “Stay home, stay safe, stay alive.”
“I know it’s really difficult because it’s Christmas Eve. But we’re having dozens and dozens of incidents,” he said in an online briefing. “It is simply not safe.”
Temperatures were forecast to top out at just minus 7 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 13 degrees Celsius) in Pittsburgh, surpassing the city’s coldest-ever Christmas Eve high of 13 degrees Fahrenheit, set in 1983, it said. NWS.
Similarly, cities in Georgia and South Carolina — Athens and Charleston — were expected to have their coldest daytime high temperatures on Christmas Eve, and Washington, D.C., was expected to have its coldest December 24 since 1989.
A spell of temperature records has been forecast for Christmas, as a deep freeze sharpened by dangerous wind chills blankets much of the eastern two-thirds of the country.
“The cold snap will continue through Christmas,” said meteorologist Ashton Robinson Cook at the NWS Weather Forecasting Centre.
On Christmas morning, Cook said, the coldest spot will be in Fargo, North Dakota, at -20.
It will begin to moderate from west to east across America, he said, with the high plains and central United States returning to normal by Tuesday, but it won’t be warm on the East Coast until Thursday or Friday.
“Right now it’s cold,” he said.
Severe weather has prompted authorities across the country to open warming stations in libraries and police stations as they scramble to expand temporary shelter for the homeless. The challenge has been exacerbated by the influx of thousands of migrants across the southern border of the United States in recent weeks.
The National Weather Service said its map of current or imminent meteorological hazards “depicts one of the largest levels of winter weather alerts and warnings ever recorded.”
FAE