Blizzard kills 12 in Buffalo, N.Y., area - Reuters

Dec 25 (Reuters) - A lethal blizzard paralyzed Buffalo, New York, connected Christmas Day, trapping motorists and rescue workers successful their vehicles, leaving thousands of homes without powerfulness and raising the decease toll from storms that person chilled overmuch of the United States for days.

At slightest 30 radical person died successful U.S. weather-related incidents, according to an NBC News tally, since a heavy frost gripped astir of the nation, coupled with snow, crystal and howling winds from a sprawling tempest that roared retired of the Great Lakes portion connected Friday.

CNN has reported a full of 26 upwind fatalities.

Much of the nonaccomplishment of beingness has centered successful and astir Buffalo astatine the borderline of Lake Erie successful occidental New York, arsenic numbing acold and dense "lake-effect" snowfall - the effect of frigid aerial moving implicit warmer water waters - persisted done the vacation weekend.

Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said the storm's confirmed decease toll climbed to 12 connected Sunday, up from 3 reported overnight successful the Buffalo region. The latest victims included immoderate recovered successful cars and immoderate successful snowfall banks, Poloncarz said, adding that the decease tally mightiness emergence further.

"This is not the Christmas immoderate of america hoped for nor expected," Poloncarz said connected Twitter connected Sunday. "My deepest condolences to the families who person mislaid loved ones."

New York Governor Kathy Hochul called it an "epic, once-in-a-lifetime" upwind catastrophe that ranked arsenic the fiercest wintertime tempest to deed the greater Buffalo country since a crippling 1977 blizzard that killed astir 30 people.

"We person present surpassed the standard of that storm, successful its intensity, the longevity, the ferocity of its winds," Hochul told an evening quality conference, adding that the existent tempest would apt to spell down successful past arsenic "the blizzard of '22."

RESCUING THE RESCUERS

The latest blizzard came astir six weeks aft a record-setting but shorter-lived lake-effect tempest struck occidental New York.

Despite a prohibition connected roadworthy question imposed since Friday, hundreds of Erie County motorists were stranded successful their vehicles implicit the weekend, with National Guard troops called successful to assistance with rescues hindered by white-out conditions and drifting snow, Poloncarz said.

Many snowfall plows and different instrumentality sent connected Saturday and Sunday became stuck successful the snow, "and we had to nonstop rescue missions to rescue the rescuers," helium told reporters.

The Buffalo constabulary section posted an online plea to the nationalist for assistance successful search-and-recovery efforts, asking those who "have a snowfall mobile and are consenting to help" to telephone a hotline for instructions.

The severity of the tempest was notable adjacent for a portion accustomed to harsh wintertime weather.

Christina Klaffka, 39, a North Buffalo resident, watched the shingles stroke disconnected her neighbor's location and listened to her windows rattle from "hurricane-like winds." She mislaid powerfulness on with her full vicinity connected Saturday evening, and was inactive without energy connected Sunday morning.

"My TV kept flickering portion I was trying to ticker the Buffalo Bills and Chicago Bears game. I mislaid powerfulness soon aft the 3rd quarter," she said.

John Burns, 58, a retiree successful North Buffalo, said helium and his household were trapped successful their location for 36 hours by the tempest and utmost acold that helium called "mean and nasty."

"Nobody was out. Nobody was adjacent walking their dogs," helium said. "Nothing was going connected for 2 days."

Snowfall totals were hard to gauge, helium added, due to the fact that of fierce winds that reduced accumulation betwixt houses, but piled up a 5-foot drift "in beforehand of my garage."

Hochul told reporters connected Sunday that the Biden medication had agreed to enactment her petition for a national catastrophe declaration.

About 200 National Guard troops were mobilized successful occidental New York to assistance constabulary and occurrence crews, behaviour wellness checks and bring supplies to shelters, Hochul said.

ELECTRICITY HIT HARD

The larger tempest strategy was moving eastbound connected Sunday, aft knocking retired powerfulness to arsenic galore arsenic 1.5 cardinal customers astatine the tallness of outages precocious past week and forcing thousands of commercialized formation cancellations during the engaged vacation question period.

More than 150,000 U.S. homes and businesses were without powerfulness connected Sunday, down sharply from the 1.8 cardinal without powerfulness arsenic of aboriginal Saturday, according to PowerOutage.us. In Buffalo, 15,000 residents were inactive without energy connected Sunday evening, Poloncarz said.

He said 1 electrical substation knocked offline was sealed disconnected by an 18-foot-tall mound of snow, and inferior crews recovered the full installation frozen inside.

Christmas Day temperatures, portion opening to rebound from near-zero readings that were wide connected Saturday, remained good beneath mean crossed the cardinal and eastbound United States, and beneath freezing adjacent arsenic acold southbound arsenic the Gulf Coast, National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist Rich Otto said.

Nearly 4 feet of snowfall was measured astatine Buffalo airdrome by Sunday, according to the latest NWS tally, with white-out conditions lingering southbound of Buffalo into the day arsenic continuing squalls dumped 2-3 inches of snowfall an hour.

In Kentucky, officials confirmed 3 storm-related deaths since Friday, portion astatine slightest 4 radical were dormant and respective injured successful auto-related accidents successful Ohio, wherever a 50-vehicle pileup unopen down the Ohio Turnpike during a blizzard connected Friday.

Other deaths related to utmost acold oregon weather-induced conveyance accidents were reported successful Missouri, Tennessee, Kansas and Colorado, according to quality reports.

Reporting by Gabriella Borter and Ahmed Aboulenein successful Washington; Additional reporting by Lucia Mutikani, Idrees Ali, Ismail Shakil, Rick Cowan and ; Writing by Steve Gorman; editing by Ross Colvin, Diane Craft, Nick Zieminski, Leslie Adler and Gerry Doyle

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