'Once-in-a-lifetime' blizzard in US kills at least 60 people nationwide
At least 60 lives have been lost in weather-related incidents across the United States, according to an NBC News tally, from an arctic deep freeze and sprawling storm front that extended over most of the country for days, as far south as the Mexican border.
The greater Buffalo region, on the edge of Lake Erie near the Canadian border, was hardest hit.
With snow continuing to fall on top of more than 4 feet (1.2 meters) dumped on Buffalo since the blizzard took shape on Friday (December 23), New York's second-largest city stood as ground zero for a storm the governor called an "epic, once-in-a-lifetime" weather disaster.
Although blinding winds that created white-out conditions for more than two days had abated by Monday, the snow kept falling, with additional accumulations of up to a foot (30 cm) forecast through Tuesday in areas south of Buffalo and north of Syracuse.
Roadways remained littered with cars, buses, ambulances, tow trucks, and even plows buried beneath towering drifts, complicating efforts to clear snow-blanketed streets and reach stranded residents in need of medical care. Authorities deployed high-lift tractors as hospital transports.
Despite a countywide ban on personal road travel that remained in effect on Monday, hundreds of motorists had to be rescued from their vehicles over the weekend.
The severity of the storm, notable for a region accustomed to harsh winter weather, grew out of a combination of meteorological factors that supercharged one another.
Howling winds, numbing cold, and "lake-effect" snow - the result of moisture picked up by frigid air moving over warmer lake waters - produced a storm that New York Governor Kathy Hochul said would go down in history as "the Blizzard of '22."
Reuters
