According to the website Power Outage, around one million households started the holiday without electricity on Saturday evening. Millions of travelers were also stranded at airports, including Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Detroit and New York, on their way to their families. According to the Flightaware website, the winter storm had already led to the cancellation of 2,300 US flights and the delay of 5,300 other flights on Saturday.
However, US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg tweeted on Saturday that “the most extreme disruptions are behind us as airline and airport operations begin to recover.”
Zack Cuyler, 35, from New York is now hoping to make it to his loved ones in Houston, Texas in time for Christmas. “I’m just glad I can see my family at Christmas,” he told AFP. Because of the storm, his flight home had already been delayed twice and then canceled altogether.
Meanwhile, Governor Kathy Hochul has dispatched the National Guard to Erie County and the capital, Buffalo, in the hard-hit state of New York. According to the authorities, the emergency services there practically collapsed in the face of the extreme snowstorm.
“There are probably still hundreds of people stuck in their vehicles,” said Mark Poloncarz of the Erie County Council on Saturday. According to him, the National Guard was “sent straight to the city of Buffalo” to help people in life-threatening situations.
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