More than half of the victims died in Buffalo, in New York State, where the blizzard was more intense than the one who had shot the city in 1977.
by CORINE LESNES (San Francisco, correspondent)
The “Blizzard of the century”, according to the expression of New York State governor Kathy Hochul, left more than sixty dead in the United States. Tuesday, December 27, the snow had stopped falling on Buffalo, in the northwest of the state, epicenter of the winter storm Elliott who made Christmas a nightmare weekend for millions of Americans.
Circulation continued to be prohibited in this city of 280,000 inhabitants with the streets buried under almost two meters of snow. The firefighters tried to release the immobilized cars – several hundred – and the trees slaughtered under the effect of particularly violent winds. The authorities called on the National Guard to enforce the prohibition to move decreed to facilitate rescue and electricity recovery operations.
The assessment, in the county of Erié, encompassing Buffalo, was on Tuesday thirty -one deaths linked to the storm, half of the number of victims throughout the country. A figure greater than the report of the Blizzard of 1977 (twenty-nine deaths), remained in the memories in this region close to the falls of Niagara, where winter is particularly rigorous. Blizzard exceeded that of 1977 in terms of wind power, intensity of snowfall (thirty-seven hours without discontinuous) and lack of visibility. The gusts reached 120 km/h. The international airport received 1.2 meters of snow in a day and a half, three times more than in 1977. It still had not reopened Wednesday, December 28.
The rescuers fear that the balance sheet will be higher as they review the 420 calls for emergency services that have remained unanswered, the firefighters themselves being blocked by the Blizzard. “Rescuers had to rescue other rescuers,” said Buffalo’s assistant mayor, Crystal Rodriguez-Dabney, to the CNN channel. The Washington Post cited the testimony of a caregiver who has herself be blocked in her ambulance for fourteen hours without water or food. “Unfortunately, we continue to find bodies in the streets and in the widths,” said the county manager of the county, Mark Poloncarz, on CNN.
many solidarity gestures
Tuesday, three new victims were found in the county of Erié, including a man poisoned with carbon dioxide when the snow has covered the ventilation of his stove. According to her family, Anndel Taylor, 22 -year -old nurse aid died in her car, imprisoned by snow, while she was going home to North Carolina. Until the last minute, she was able to send videos to her loved ones, showing the progress of snow around her vehicle. According to her sister, Volishia Brown, the young woman is not dead – she did not even wear her coat – but suffocated. His body was not found until eighteen hours later.
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