East and West coasts prepare for new rounds of snow and ice as deadly storms pound US
PORTLAND, Ore. — Storms that have turned roads into icy death traps, froze people to death from Oregon to Tennessee and even caused a plane to skid off a taxiway were expected to hit both coasts with a new round of weather chaos on Friday.
New York City — which only saw its first snow in more than two years on Tuesday — was in the headlights as the National Weather Service issued warnings of possible snowfall ranging from 3 to 5 inches (7.6 to 12.7 centimeters) to with Friday in the state and parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
On Thursday, an American Airlines plane slid off a snowy taxiway in Rochester, New York, after a flight from Philadelphia. No injuries have been reported.
On the West Coast, Oregon’s governor declared a statewide emergency Thursday evening after requests for assistance from several counties “as they enter the sixth day of severe impacts” from weather marked by freezing rain.
Thousands of residents have been without power in parts of Oregon’s Willamette Valley since Saturday after an ice storm caused extensive damage.
“The power went out on Saturday, and yesterday we were told it would be over two weeks before the power came back on,” said Jamie Kenworthy, a real estate agent in Jasper, Lane County.
“We have a generator that we got last year and it now runs on an oil plug-in heater,” she said. “We also have a natural gas stove, and I have been running two of the burners to try to help warm the house.”
Over the past two weeks, storms have battered much of the U.S. with rain, snow, wind and frigid temperatures, disrupting traffic and air travel and killing at least 45 people.
That included three people who were electrocuted by a downed power line in Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday. A man trying to get out of a parked car that was below the line died with a baby in his arms after slipping on the icy driveway and hitting the live wire. The child survived.
His pregnant 21-year-old girlfriend and her 15-year-old brother died trying to help. Their father, Ronald Briggs, told KGW-TV that he watched their deaths helplessly.
“I have six children. I lost two in one day,” he said.
Crews had made steady progress in restoring power to tens of thousands of customers in Oregon after back-to-back storms, but by Thursday evening more than 79,000 people were without electricity, according to the website poweroutage.us.
Portland Public Schools canceled classes for the fourth day in a row amid concerns about icy roads and water damage to buildings, and state offices in Portland were also ordered to close Friday.
The bitter weather continued in the South, where a new layer of ice formed over parts of Tennessee on Thursday – part of a broader cold snap sweeping the country.
Authorities blamed at least 14 deaths in Tennessee on the system, which has dumped more than 9 inches (22.8 centimeters) of snow since Sunday in parts of Nashville, a city where such accumulations are rare. Temperatures also fell below zero (minus 17.7 degrees Celsius) in parts of the state, creating the highest ever demand for energy in the seven states served by the Tennessee Valley Authority.
The deaths included a truck driver who slid into a tractor-trailer on a highway, a man who fell through a skylight while cleaning a roof, and a woman who died of hypothermia after being found unconscious in her home.
On Thursday, Will Compton of the nonprofit Open Table Nashville, which helps the homeless, stopped his SUV outside the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum to hand out warm hats, blankets, protein drinks and socks as the freezing rain fell.
“People who are poor and people who are homeless are hit the hardest,” Compton said.
Aaron Robison, 62, stayed at one of the city’s warming centers and said the cold wouldn’t have bothered him when he was younger. But now that he had arthritis in his hip and had to rely on two sticks, he had to get out of the cold.
“Thank God that people are helping people on the streets. That’s a blessing,” he said.
In Mississippi’s capital, an estimated 12,000 customers experienced low water pressure Thursday, a new setback for Jackson’s long-troubled water system.
The pipe ruptures accelerated Wednesday as frozen ground began to thaw and expand, putting pressure on underground pipes, Jackson water officials said. The water system experienced increased pressure due to a surge as people filled their bathtubs in response to what officials called a “deliberate disinformation campaign” on social media about the city’s water supply, Jackson water manager Ted Henifin said.
Since the extremely cold weather began last week, more than 60 oil spills and other environmental incidents have been reported in North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields, where regulators say chills of up to minus 70 degrees (minus 56.6 C) are affecting workers and pressurized equipment. making accidents more likely.
In Washington state, five people — most of whom were believed to be homeless — died in Seattle last week from exposure to the cold as temperatures dropped well below freezing, the medical examiner’s office said.
In Kansas, authorities were investigating the death of an 18-year-old whose body was found Wednesday in a ditch not far from where his vehicle was stuck in the snow.
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Associated Press journalists Jonathan Mattise and Kristin M. Hall in Nashville and Adrian Sainz in Memphis contributed.