Tens of millions of Americans endured freezing temperatures, blizzard conditions, power outages and canceled holiday gatherings on Friday due to a winter storm that forecasters said was near unprecedented in its magnitude, exposing about 60% of the US population to some sort of winter weather warning or warning.
More than 200 million people were issued an advisory or warning Friday, the National Weather Service said. The weather service map “represents one of the largest spans of winter weather warnings and advisories,” the forecasters said.
Power outages have left around 1.4 million homes and businesses in the dark, the website says. Power outage, which tracks utility reports. The Tennessee Valley Authority, the nation’s largest utility, ended its power cuts Friday afternoon but continued to urge homes and businesses to conserve energy. In Georgia, hundreds of people in Atlanta and upstate were without power and facing the possibility of sub-zero wind chill without heat.
And nearly 5,000 flights within, to or from the United States were canceled on Friday, according to tracking site FlightAware, causing more chaos as travelers try to get home for the holidays.
A strong winter storm is already making its presence felt in many states.
“We just have to stay positive,” said Wendell Davis, who plays basketball with a team in France and was waiting at O’Hare in Chicago on Friday after a string of flight cancellations.
The huge storm stretched from border to border. In Canada, WestJet canceled all flights Friday at Toronto Pearson International Airport, starting at 9 a.m., as the country’s meteorologists warned of a potential once-a-decade weather event.
And in Mexico, migrants waited near the US border in unusually cold temperatures as they awaited a US Supreme Court ruling on whether and when to lift pandemic-era restrictions that prevent many from seek asylum.
Forecasters said a bomb cyclone – when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly during a strong storm – had developed near the Great Lakes, bringing blizzard conditions including high winds and snow.
Several highways were closed and crashes left at least six people dead, officials said. At least two people died in a massive pileup involving some 50 vehicles on the Ohio Turnpike. A Kansas City, Missouri, driver was killed Thursday after skidding in a creek, and three others died Wednesday in separate crashes on icy northern Kansas roads.
Michigan also faced a deluge of accidents, including one involving nine tractor-trailers.
Brent Whitehead said it took him 7.5 hours instead of the usual six to drive from his home near Minneapolis to his parents’ home outside Chicago on Thursday in sometimes freezing conditions.
“Thank goodness my car was fitted with snow tires,” he said.
Activists were also rushing to pull the homeless out of the cold. Nearly 170 adults and children were keeping warm early Friday in Detroit at a shelter and warming center designed to accommodate 100 people.
“That’s a lot of extra people,” but it wasn’t an option to turn anyone away, said Faith Fowler, executive director of Cass Community Social Services, which runs the two facilities.
In Chicago, Andy Robledo planned to spend the day organizing efforts to monitor homeless people through his nonprofit, Feeding People Through Plants. Robledo and volunteers build tents modeled after ice fishing tents, including a plywood subfloor.
“It’s not a house, it’s not an apartment, it’s not a hotel room. But it’s a huge step up from what they had before,” Robledo said.
In Portland, Oregon, nearly 800 people slept in five emergency shelters Thursday night as homeless outreach teams fanned out to distribute cold-weather survival gear. Shelters have called on volunteers amid high demand and staffing issues. Employees were brought down by flu or respiratory symptoms or prevented from working by icy roads, officials said.
DoorDash and Uber Eats suspended delivery service in some states, and bus service was halted in places like Seattle.
Power went out at Jaime Sheehan’s Maryland bakery for about 90 minutes on Friday, turning off the convection oven and stopping the mixer she needed to make buttercream.
“Fortunately, all orders placed today were already completed yesterday,” she said moments before power returned.
Around the same time, Corey Newcomb and his family were entering their sixth hour without power at their home in the small town of Phenix, Virginia.
“We get by and that’s about it,” Newcomb said in a Facebook post.
South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem said she was deploying the National Guard to transport lumber to the Oglala Sioux and Rosebud Sioux tribes and help with snow removal.
“We have families that are there that we haven’t heard from in two weeks,” said Wayne Boyd, chief of staff to the president of Rosebud Sioux.
Fearing that some would run out of food, the tribe hoped to get a helicopter on Saturday to check on the stranded.
The Oglala Sioux tribe, meanwhile, used snowmobiles to reach members who live at the end of miles-long dirt roads.
“It’s been a hell of a fight so far,” Tribal Chairman Frank Star Comes Out said.
On the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Harlie Young was huddled with five children and her 58-year-old father around a wood-burning stove as 12ft (3.6m) snowdrifts blocked the house.
“We’re just trying to see the bright side that they’re still coming and they haven’t forgotten about us,” she said on Friday as the temperature plunged to freezing levels.
The Weather Service is predicting the coldest Christmas in more than two decades in Philadelphia, where school officials moved classes online Friday.
At the summit of Mount Washington in New Hampshire, the highest peak in the northeast, the wind exceeded 150 mph (241 km/h).
In Boston, rain combined with a high tide sent waves over the Long Wharf seawall and flooded some downtown streets. It was so bad in Vermont that Amtrak canceled service for the day and non-essential state offices were closing early.
“I hear crews seeing crop trees being pulled out by the roots,” Mari McClure, president of Green Mountain Power, the state’s largest utility, said at a news conference.
Calling it a “kitchen sink storm,” New York Governor Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency. In parts of New York City, tidal flooding inundated roads, homes and businesses on Friday morning, with police trudging through knee-deep water to get stranded motorists to safety in Queens.
In Iowa, sportscaster Mark Woodley became a Twitter sensation after being called out to do live broadcasts outside in the wind and snow because sporting events were canceled. Friday noon, a compilation of his shows had been viewed nearly 5 million times on Twitter.
“I have good news and I have bad news,” he told a presenter. “The good news is that I can still feel my face right now. The bad news is that I wish I couldn’t.
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Bleeding reported from Little Rock, Arkansas. Associated Press reporters Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit; Gillian Flaccus in Portland, Oregon; Zeke Miller in Washington; and Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed to this report.