9 dead as storm sweeps across eastern US
Print Edition
A WINTER storm has led to at least nine deaths as it sweeps across the eastern half of the United States.
Slick roads have caused traffic deaths in Michigan, Kentucky, Indiana and Illinois.
A worker at a suburban Philadelphia salt storage facility was killed on Thursday when a 30-meter pile of road salt fell and crushed him. Police said the man was trapped while operating a backhoe.
And authorities said a woman with Alzheimer’s disease froze to death after she wandered away from her rural New York home.
The storm, with howling winds and frigid cold, dumped nearly 60 centimeters of snow in some parts and whipping up blizzard-like conditions yesterday.
US airlines canceled more than 2,300 flights nationwide ahead of the storm, and hundreds more flights were expected to canceled or delayed, especially at New York and Boston airports.
Governors in New York and New Jersey declared states of emergency, urging residents to stay at home. Hundreds of schools were shut down in Boston and New York, extending the holiday break for tens of thousands of students.
“This is nothing to be trifled with,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said. “People should seriously consider staying in their homes.”
Some major highways in New York state were shut down overnight, and some commuter trains around New York City were operating on a reduced schedule.
Forecasters said temperatures were plummeting to well below freezing, and wind chill readings could hit minus 23 Celsius.
Outreach teams were searching streets in New York City and Boston for homeless people who are at risk of freezing to death.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie ordered nonessential state workers to stay home yesterday. State offices and courthouses were closed. State offices were also closed in Massachusetts.
The weather service issued a blizzard warning for Cape Cod, coastal areas north and south of Boston and part of Maine as well as New York’s Long Island, where up to 25cm of snow could fall and winds could gust to 72 kilometers per hour.
The snowstorm worked its way east from the Midwest, where it dropped up to 431 millimeters of snow in parts of Chicago and prompted the cancellation on Thursday of hundreds of flights at both of the city’s airports.
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