– It was as if someone just turned on a switch.
This is how Hege Ulbrich describes the weather on Thursday evening. She is Norwegian and lives with her family in Buffalo in the state of New York.
On Thursday evening, she was supposed to drive and pick up her parents at the airport. They came all the way from Norway to celebrate Christmas in the USA. They got on the last flight to Buffalo before the storm hit.
EXTREME: Hege Ulbrich has lived in the USA for many years, and says she has never experienced anything like this. Photo: Private
It went from rain and no snow on the roads to a full blizzard in a few hours.
– I have never experienced this in Norway or here. This is something completely different. The wind was hurricane force, and it has never been here in Buffalo before, says Ulbrich to TV 2.
– We couldn’t even go out with the dog. We just had to let it out in the garden so it could go to the toilet, then it came right back in.
Power failure
ABANDONED: Several left their cars on the roads and went home. Photo: JASON MURAWSKI JR
According to the authorities, 50 people have lost their lives in the storm over the Christmas weekend. They also say 20 of those deaths have been in Buffalo.
– This is certainly the blizzard of the century, and it is far too early to say that it is over, said the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, on Monday, pointing out that, according to meteorologists, more snow is in store.
Deaths have also been reported in eight other states in the storm, which has hit large parts of the USA, from the Great Lakes near Canada in the north to the Rio Grande at the border with Mexico in the south.
ABANDONED: Several people are said to have abandoned cars along the road to go home. Photo: BRENDAN MCDERMID
Around 60 per cent of the US’s roughly 330 million inhabitants spent the Christmas weekend in an area where a danger warning had been issued, and tens of thousands of homes were also without power during the holiday.
– Not afraid
Ulbrich says that they were prepared.
– We knew the storm would come, but not that it would be so extreme. Fortunately, we had stockpiled food before the wind came. It has happened many times before that we have had snowy weather in Buffalo. But it has never been like this, says Ulbrich.
HURRICANE: The wind was so strong that the snow stuck to the windows. Photo: Hege Ulbrich
She says that the shop shelves started to be empty in the days before the storm came. There must also have been a queue throughout the entire grocery store.
Some in her neighborhood also lost power during the storm. The Norwegian-American family did not lose power. They also had a spare unit in the garden.
– If we hadn’t had the unit in the garden, I would have been scared. I wasn’t afraid. You could hear the walls rattling.
Fears several have lost their lives
A driving ban was introduced for two days due to the weather. Ulbrich says that several people simply left their cars along the road.
– The cars were just completely stuck along the road. Someone was trying to go home. The authorities say 20 have lost their lives, but I fear the number is higher than that. It is possible that several people have died on the way home from their cars, she says.
MÅKE: Ulbrich says that it was impossible to shovel when the storm was at its worst. Photo: Hege Ulbrich
The roads will reopen on Monday evening local time. Work is underway to plow the roads, but it may take a long time.
– We are used to there being a lot of snow here, but the problem is that there was a driving ban. Then the plow trucks couldn’t do their job, and the snow just melted down. Now there is an incredible amount of snow on the roads, says Ulbrich.
