• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Advertise
  • Contact Us
  • About Towleroad
  • Towleroad on Social Media
  • Privacy Policy

Towleroad Gay News

Gay Blog Towleroad: More than gay news | gay men

  • Travel
  • Sports
  • Law/Justice
  • Celebrities
  • Republicans
  • Madonna
  • Books
  • Men
  • Trans Rights
  • Royals
  • Monkeypox
  • Adele moved to tears by man holding up a picture of his wife at her concert
  • Marc Jacobs admitted facelift to stop people talking s***
  • Lost radioactive capsule found in Australian Outback after huge search

Arctic blast, blizzards disrupt U.S. travel ahead of holidays

Towleroad December 25, 2022 Leave a Comment

Published by
Reuters
660929 origin 1

By Rich McKay and Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) -Arctic cold extended its grip over much of the United States on Friday, combining with snow, ice and howling winds from a deadly winter storm roaring out of the Midwest to disrupt energy supplies and thwart travel for millions of Americans ahead of the holiday weekend.

The extreme winter weather, which prompted city authorities across the country to open warming centers in libraries and police stations while scrambling to expand temporary shelter for the homeless, was blamed for at least five deaths on Friday.

A 50-vehicle pileup on the Ohio Turnpike in a blizzard near Toledo killed two motorists, injured numerous others and shut down both lanes of the highway, state police reported.

Stranded motorists were evacuated by bus to keep them from freezing in their cars in sub-zero temperatures, according to the Toledo Fire & Rescue Department.

Three weather-related fatalities were confirmed in neighboring Kentucky – two from car accidents and one a homeless person who died of exposure.

“Please stay home and stay safe,” Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear said on Twitter, announcing the deaths.

With the deep freeze stretching from Montana to Texas as it crept eastward, some 240 million people – more than two-thirds of the U.S. population – were under winter weather warnings and advisories on Friday, the National Weather Service (NWS) said.

The map of existing or impending wintry hazards “depicts one of the greatest extents of winter weather warnings and advisories ever,” the NWS said.

‘I GUESS IT’S COLD OUT’

The nation’s coldest spot on Friday was the remote northern Montana town of Havre near the Canadian border, where the mercury had risen from a low of 38 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (minus 39 C) to minus 20 just before noon, the NWS reported.

“It’s been colder, but yeah, I guess it’s cold out,” Tyler Schaub, the manager of Rod’s Drive Inn, acknowledged as he was flipping burgers on the grill. “We’re used to it, but even then it’s best not to stay outside too long.”

Numbing cold intensified by high winds extended through the Deep South to the U.S.-Mexico border, plunging wind chill factors to single digits Fahrenheit (minus 18 to minus 13 Celsius) in the border city of El Paso, Texas. Exposure to such conditions can cause frostbite within minutes.

Hard-freeze warnings were posted in southern Georgia and across much of all four Gulf Coast states – Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Florida.

Farther north, the storm system produced blinding snow from the northern Plains and Great Lakes region to the upper Mississippi Valley, the Ohio Valley, western New York state and mountains of the northern and central Appalachians.

The storm front pushed into New England, where wind-driven surf caused coastal flooding.

SHELTER, ENERGY, FLIGHTS

The extreme weather added to a humanitarian crisis in numerous cities facing an influx of migrants who have crossed the U.S. southern border by the thousands in recent weeks and lack permanent shelter. Their plight has added to local agencies scrambling to get people off the streets as the arctic blast arrived.

The household routines and holiday plans of ordinary Americans were likewise disrupted just days before Christmas.

With the nation’s energy systems strained by rising demand for heat and by storm-related damage to transmission lines, as many as 1.5 million U.S. homes and businesses were left without power on Friday, according to tracking site Poweroutage.us.

Heating and energy prices spiked as inclement weather forced energy production cuts and bone-chilling cold drove demand higher.

Severe winds, ice and snow upended commercial air traffic during one of the busiest travel periods of the year.

More than 5,200 U.S. flights were canceled on Friday, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. Nearly 700 flights into or out of Seattle’s major airport were axed as a separate storm system brought ice and freezing rain to the Pacific Northwest.

The American Automobile Association (AAA) had estimated that 112.7 million people planned to travel 50 miles (80 km) or more from home between Friday and Jan. 2. That number was likely to drop due to treacherous weather complicating air and road travel going into the weekend.

The city of Buffalo and its surrounding county on the edge of Lake Erie in western New York imposed a driving ban, and all three Buffalo-area border crossing bridges were closed to inbound traffic from Canada due to the weather.

“If there’s any good news, it’s that the storm has moved quickly over some areas,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told MSNBC on Friday.

Last-minute holiday gift purchases may also have slim chances of reaching their destinations by Christmas.

FedEx, United Parcel Service, the U.S. Postal Service and Amazon.com all alerted customers that severe weather was disrupting key operations in Tennessee, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, the Dakotas and other areas hard-hit by bitter cold and blizzards.

Weather forecasters said the massive storm over the Midwest had materialized into a “bomb cyclone” – a phenomenon caused by a drastic, rapid drop in atmospheric pressure that forms a kind of cold-weather hurricane.

While some areas downwind from the Great Lakes received a foot or more of snow on Friday, “the big story wasn’t so much the falling snow but the blowing snow,” weather service meteorologist Brian Hurley said.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta and Gabriella Borter in New York; Writing and additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Tim Reid, Lisa Baertlein, Erwin Seba, Susan Heavey, Laila Kearney, Alyson McClaren and Scott DiSavino; Editing by Jonathan Oatis, Aleksandra Michalska, Aurora Ellis and William Mallard)

660929 660929 origin 1 1
660929 660929 origin 1 2
660929 660929 origin 1 3
660929 660929 origin 1 4

Topics: A News, Aaon More Posts About: Ohio Turnpike, Reuters, Rich McKay, Toledo Fire & Rescue Department, Warming center

Related Posts
  • Lawsuit to take aim at Utah law banning transition care for minors
  • Judge blocks New Jersey ban on guns at beaches, casinos
  • Sixth Memphis police officer dismissed in Tyre Nichols case, local media reports
  • Marc Jacobs admitted facelift to stop people talking s***

    Marc Jacobs admitted facelift to stop people talking s***

    Published by BANG Showbiz English Marc Jacobs is always honest about his cosmetic surgery so people can’t “talk s***” about him. The 59-year-old fashion designer was candid about going under the knife in 2021 and praised …Read More »
  • Lost radioactive capsule found in Australian Outback after huge search

    Lost radioactive capsule found in Australian Outback after huge search

    Published by Reuters By Lewis Jackson and Melanie Burton SYDNEY (Reuters) -Australian authorities on Wednesday found a radioactive capsule smaller than a coin that was lost in the vast Outback after nearly a week-long search involving …Read More »
  • Sam Smith has ‘the opposite of body dysmorphia’

    Sam Smith has ‘the opposite of body dysmorphia’

    Published by BANG Showbiz English Sam Smith has the “opposite” of body dysmorphia now. The ‘Unholy’ singer struggled in the past with the mental disorder, where someone becomes obsessed by a perceived flaw in their appearance, …Read More »
  • Jeffree Star’s Fans SCRAMBLE To Uncover Identity Of Mystery ‘NFL Boo’ As Makeup Artist Drops Latest Clue With New Lover

    Jeffree Star’s Fans SCRAMBLE To Uncover Identity Of Mystery ‘NFL Boo’ As Makeup Artist Drops Latest Clue With New Lover

    Published by Radar Online Mega Jeffree Starsent the internet on fire when he casually dropped photos showing him cuddled up to who he described as his “NFL boo” — and now, fans are scrambling to uncover …Read More »
Previous Post: « New York Governor Promises to Open the State’s First Weed Shop
Next Post: Shredded Hunk Mark Wahlberg Flexes His Muscles After Ditching Hollywood »

Primary Sidebar

Adjacent News

  • Proud Boys plotted ‘firing squads’ ahead of Jan. 6 riot: ‘War if they steal this’

    Proud Boys plotted ‘firing squads’ ahead of Jan. 6 riot: ‘War if they steal this’

  • Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 2023 nominees include Willie Nelson, Missy Elliott, George Michael, Sheryl Crow

    Rock & Roll Hall of Fame 2023 nominees include Willie Nelson, Missy Elliott, George Michael, Sheryl Crow

  • Editorial: The drag queen debate is ignorant of history and a proxy fight with kids as pawns

    Editorial: The drag queen debate is ignorant of history and a proxy fight with kids as pawns

Good Trash: Going to Read It Somewhere, Y'know

  • Stormy Daniels takes victory lap after Trump pens tirade about her on Truth Social

    Stormy Daniels takes victory lap after Trump pens tirade about her on Truth Social

  • ‘He Was Consumed With Sadness’: Lisa Marie Presley ‘Destroyed’ Ex-Husband Michael Jackson With Shock Divorce Filing

    ‘He Was Consumed With Sadness’: Lisa Marie Presley ‘Destroyed’ Ex-Husband Michael Jackson With Shock Divorce Filing

  • Jane Fonda ‘worried’ about Barbarella remake

    Jane Fonda ‘worried’ about Barbarella remake

RSS Partner Links

  • The Secret To Reading An Inconvenient Bible
  • Keke Palmer Reveals How She First Found Out She Was Pregnant
  • “A helpful explainer for the Paul Mescal-Phoebe Bridgers drama” links
  • Why is Priscilla Presley fighting to invalidate Lisa Marie Presley’s will?
  • My tribute to wonderful publicist Jeff Ballard
  • NEW: Manhattan D.A. Presenting Evidence To Grand Jury About Trump
  • Multi-vaccinated Matt Doyle to miss 10 performances of “Little Shop of Horrors” after testing positive for Covid

Most Recent

  • Adele moved to tears by man holding up a picture of his wife at her concert

    Adele moved to tears by man holding up a picture of his wife at her concert

  • Marc Jacobs admitted facelift to stop people talking s***

    Marc Jacobs admitted facelift to stop people talking s***

  • Lost radioactive capsule found in Australian Outback after huge search

    Lost radioactive capsule found in Australian Outback after huge search

  • Sam Smith has ‘the opposite of body dysmorphia’

    Sam Smith has ‘the opposite of body dysmorphia’

  • Jeffree Star’s Fans SCRAMBLE To Uncover Identity Of Mystery ‘NFL Boo’ As Makeup Artist Drops Latest Clue With New Lover

    Jeffree Star’s Fans SCRAMBLE To Uncover Identity Of Mystery ‘NFL Boo’ As Makeup Artist Drops Latest Clue With New Lover

  • Alicia Silverstone returns as Clueless character Cher: WATCH

    Alicia Silverstone returns as Clueless character Cher: WATCH

  • Rep. George Santos agrees to skip sitting on House committees as poll shows 78% of voters want him out

    Rep. George Santos agrees to skip sitting on House committees as poll shows 78% of voters want him out

  • As Pope Francis visits Congo, LGBT+ activists cheer for perceived ally

    As Pope Francis visits Congo, LGBT+ activists cheer for perceived ally

Most Commented

Social

Twitter @tlrd | Facebook | Instagram @tlrd

Footer

Copyright © 2023 · Log in

×