The US president approved the request for an emergency declaration in the state of New York after the devastating winter storm that caused at least 28 deaths in the state and fifty throughout the country, says a White House statement published this Monday.
With this declaration, the Biden Administration approves federal aid to the state and local governments to deal with the consequences of this severe storm that has caused the death of at least fifty people throughout the country, 27 of them in the Northwest. of the state of New York.
The president thus authorized the Department of the Interior and the Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate the actions necessary to deal with this situation and “alleviate the adversity and suffering” caused by the storm.
The United States tries to recover from the ravages caused by the arctic front that has taken the lives of more than 50 people, half in the Buffalo area, in the state of New York.
Storm Elliot, described as “once in a generation” by the National Weather Service (NWS), has caused freezing temperatures from the Great Lakes, near Canada, to the Rio Grande (also called the Rio Grande), in the border with Mexico.
Heavy snowfall and hurricane-force winds have left thousands of people trapped in their homes and on the roads, thousands of passengers stranded on Christmas Eve due to flight cancellations, and thousands of homes without power due to the collapse of electrical infrastructure.
Earlier, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called for a state of emergency to be declared, adding that while the situation is better, 6 to 12 inches of snow is still expected to fall in southern Erie County, whose capital is the city of Buffalo.
“The situation is not as bad as it has been in the last couple of days, but it is still a dangerous situation to be out. Stay home until tomorrow,” insisted Hochul, who described the storm as “once in a generation.”
According to local authorities, there are still 12,000 homes without power in the city, where four power substations were damaged by the storm.
The mayor of Buffalo, Byron Brown, assured that his house was one of those that suffered power outages and explained that he was at 4 degrees Celsius with several members of his family, including two minors.
Brown also made reference during his speech to the existence of looting in the city and the arrest of some people.
“We fully understand the difficulties that so many families are going through and the frustration they are facing. There are 18 dead in Buffalo: on the streets, they became disoriented and died; people who died in cars and in houses,” Brown said before stressing that it is a “very difficult and dangerous” situation.
3,500 canceled flights
Since Wednesday night, the United States has been battered by this rare intensity storm, whose polar winds have brought heavy snowfall, especially in the Great Lakes region.
Freezing temperatures were recorded in 48 US states over the weekend, including Texas communities along the border with Mexico, where some recently arrived migrants were having difficulty finding shelter.
Tens of millions of Americans had their Christmas upended by massive power outages, impassable roads and thousands of canceled flights, causing chaos at airports.
On Monday, about 3,500 flights remained canceled in the United States.
The weather is expected to gradually improve as the week progresses.
The extreme weather “will continue to cause hazardous travel conditions locally for the next two days,” the National Weather Service (NWS) said in its latest bulletin.
“Most of the eastern United States will remain in freezing conditions through Monday, before a more moderate trend sets in starting Tuesday,” it added.
