30 die as winter storm sweeps US

The powerful winter storm sweeping across much of the US over the weekend has been linked to at least 30 deaths.

The deaths have been reported from Texas to New England as many parts of the country grappled with heavy snow, ice and dangerous cold.

In Texas, authorities in Frisco said that a 16-year-old died in sledding accident, while in the Austin area, a person was found dead from apparent hypothermia. Louisiana authorities have reported three winter storm-related deaths. In Mississippi, the state’s Governor, Tate Reeves, reported two deaths as a result of the storm, in Arkansas, a 17-year-old boy was killed in a sledding accident, and in North Carolina, a man was found dead on a highway.

In New York City, officials said that eight people were found dead outdoors over the weekend. A woman in Kansas was also said to have died from hypothermia and was found covered in snow.

Massachusetts officials have said that a woman died after being struck by a snow plow, and Tennessee officials have reported three weather-related deaths.

As of Monday morning, more than 200 million people from Texas to New England were under cold alerts, with forecasters warning that bitter cold could persist through the week in many regions.

The National Weather Service (NWS) said on Monday morning that “frigid air” would spread across the eastern two-thirds of the county in the coming days, “with widespread sub-zero lows and record cold” expected. The agency said that dangerous wind chills would persist, and “much below-normal temperatures may continue into early February”.

There were still more than 670,000 power outages in the nation Monday evening, according to poweroutage.com. Most of them were in the south, where weekend blasts of freezing rain caused tree limbs and power lines to snap, inflicting widespread outages on northern Mississippi and parts of Tennessee.

Officials in parts of Mississippi have described the damage caused by the storm as “extensive”, saying that additional crews have been brought in to speed up the “tree removal and clearing” and to help with “restoration of replacing poles and lines”.

The University of Mississippi also said that it has cancelled classes at the Oxford campus until Sunday, 1 February, “due to continued extreme winter weather conditions and ongoing recovery efforts”.

“Throughout campus, the city and county, there are downed trees and power lines, power outages, falling ice and hazardous road conditions” the school said.

Travel was heavily disrupted over the weekend, with more than 10,500 US flights cancelled on Sunday. On Monday, nearly 5,000 US flights had been cancelled, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.com.

The NWS’s Prediction Center said on Monday morning that while snow was continuing across parts of New England on Monday, the snowfall had “concluded for the rest of the central and eastern United States”.

Preliminary snowfall totals have showed that parts of Massachusetts saw as much as 20in (51cm) of snow over the weekend. And parts of Pennsylvania registered 23in.

Major institutions in New York City and Washington DC are closed on Monday, including the New York Public Library, the Smithsonian museums and the National zoo. New York City public schools had also shifted to remote learning on Monday.

The New York area’s NWS office told residents on Monday to expect temperatures to remain below freezing for the rest of the week and potentially through next Monday.

Some public schools in Massachusetts and New Hampshire also were closed on Monday, with some schools announcing they would be closed on Tuesday too.

On Monday afternoon, the NWS’s weather prediction center also said that the “potential is increasing for another significant winter storm to impact the eastern United States this coming weekend” but they added that “it is too early to know the details” and urged people to keep updated with the latest forecasts this coming week.

Andy Beshear, the Kentucky Governor, has warned residents there that “dangerously cold temperatures will continue through the week, with an extreme drop starting tomorrow morning” and urged people to stay inside.

Source: The Guardian