Snow in the west and flooding in the east. Here’s how the US is dealing with the massive storm
More than 30 inches of snow fell in some parts of the Pacific Northwest and the Rockies.
CONCORD, NH: A severe storm drenched the Northeast and whipped high winds, knocking out power for hundreds of thousands after a period of severe weather that affected most of the US.
The storm, which began Tuesday evening and moved through Wednesday, washed out roads and downed trees and power lines. Wind gusts reached 45 mph to 55 mph (72 kph to 88 kph) and more windy weather was expected throughout Wednesday.
It followed a day of tornadoes and fatalities in the South and snowstorms in the Midwest and Northwest. More than 30 inches of snow fell in some parts of the Pacific Northwest and the Rockies.
Here’s how different areas are affected by the storms:
NEW JERSEY
New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy declared a state of emergency ahead of the storm. Many streets and roads were flooded and rivers rose after up to 3 inches of rain fell in some areas since Tuesday night. The rain fell a few weeks ago on ground saturated by another storm. Another storm is forecast for next weekend.
Lou DeFazio, 65, of Manville, New Jersey, lives a stone’s throw from the Millstone River, which flooded disastrously in 2021 after the remnants of Ida swept into the state and swerved riverbanks.
“It’s getting worse,” he said, as the river swelled Wednesday.
Mark Nipps grew up in Manville and watched President Joe Biden’s 2021 visit to the city, where flooding destroyed dozens of homes. He left largely because of the frequent flooding.
“Mentally, seeing your hometown destroyed every two years is not good at all,” he said in a telephone interview from his home outside Greenville, South Carolina.
Governor Murphy said 56,000 homes were without power and hundreds of accidents and emergency services had been reported on the highway, but there had been no storm fatalities. He said people often ignore flood warnings to their peril.
“And we saw during Storm Ida that people had to pay with their lives by driving their cars onto a street they weren’t supposed to be on, or staying in their homes when they shouldn’t have,” Murphy said in a statement interview with CBS New York.
NEW YORK
In Nassau County, video showed cars lapping through water that had collected on the streets of Freeport. Farther east, near the Hamptons, the National Weather Service reported major flooding from Shinnecock Bay. Several schools on Long Island canceled or postponed classes as a result of the storm.
New York City officials evacuated nearly 2,000 migrants housed in a sprawling tent complex before the storm hit, fearing the complex could collapse in high winds.
Photos showed the migrant families sleeping on the floor of a Brooklyn high school, whose students were forced to move to remote locations on Wednesday as a result of the short-term move. The migrants returned to the tent facility around 4:30 a.m. Wednesday after the winds died down, officials said.
PENNSYLVANIA
A few communities in Pennsylvania received more than 4 inches of rain, while others received almost that much. Emergency workers rescued a number of drivers from stranded vehicles as roads in low-lying areas were flooded, causing trees to fall and power lines to thousands of customers to be cut.
Forecasters said several rivers in eastern Pennsylvania experienced at least moderate flooding. Another storm bringing as much as 1.2 inches of rain Friday evening through Saturday would worsen flooding and bring very high winds, officials said.
NEW ENGLAND
A dam breach in Bozrah, Connecticut, led to mandatory evacuation orders for several areas along the Yantic River on Wednesday, Norwich officials said. A power company shut down a substation along the river, leaving about 5,000 homes and businesses without power.
The storm canceled events and government functions in Maine, where some areas were still recovering from a snowstorm last weekend and flooding the month before.
Winds gusted up to 95 mph (153 kph) on Maine’s Isle au Haut, an island in Penobscot Bay, said Jon Palmer of the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine. High winds pushed an empty passenger plane into a jet bridge at the state’s largest airport, Portland Jetport officials said Wednesday. No one was injured.
In the parking lot at Widgery Wharf on Portland’s waterfront, lobster fishermen tried to reverse some of the flooding using pumps.
Gov. Janet Mills of Maine encouraged residents to stay off the roads amid warnings about flash flooding.
“Make sure you give plow trucks, utility workers and first responders plenty of space as they work to keep us safe,” she said.
In Vermont, the storm brought wind gusts of up to 75 miles per hour and sleet, followed by rain, leaving nearly 30,000 homes without power Wednesday morning. Many schools were closed or had a delayed opening.
MIDWEST
Muddy highways led to deadly collisions in Wisconsin and another in Michigan.
The storm, which began Monday, has buried Midwestern cities in snow, leaving people stranded on highways. Up to 12 inches of snow fell in some areas on Monday, including Kansas, eastern Nebraska and South Dakota, western Iowa and southwestern Minnesota.
Madison, Wisconsin, was under a winter storm warning until early Wednesday, with as much as 9 inches of snow and winds of 40 miles per hour.
The weather has already affected campaigning for the Jan. 15 caucuses in Iowa, where snow is expected to be followed by frigid temperatures that could dip below zero degrees (minus 18 degrees Celsius).
Forecasters warned snow-hit areas in the Midwest and Great Plains that temperatures could drop dangerously low due to wind chill, down to around minus 20 (29 degrees Celsius) and even much lower in Chicago, Kansas City and some parts of Montana.
SOUTH
Several deaths are attributed to storms that hit the area with heavy rain, tornado reports, hail and wind. Survey teams set out Wednesday in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina to determine whether tornadoes struck, National Weather Service officials said.
An 81-year-old woman in Alabama was killed when her mobile home was thrown off its foundation by a suspected tornado. A man died south of Atlanta when a tree fell on his car. Another person died in North Carolina after a suspected tornado struck a mobile home park.
Roofs were blown off homes and furniture, fences and debris were strewn throughout the south during the height of the storm.
Many parts of Florida remained under flood watches, warnings and advisories early Wednesday amid concerns that streams and rivers were overflowing their banks. Gov. Ron DeSantis, who delivered his State of the State address Tuesday as tornado warnings were active outside the Capitol, issued an executive order putting 49 North Florida counties under a state of emergency.
Rescuers in Virginia pulled two people from floodwaters, where they were clinging to branches after their vehicle was submerged and then swept from the roof, the Albemarle County Fire Department said. They were not injured, but were in the water for at least ten minutes, according to spokesperson Abbey Stumpf.
WEST
Storms in the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains dumped snow, including 29 inches (74 centimeters) reported at Stevens Pass in Washington state and 30 inches (76 centimeters) outside Santa Fe, New Mexico, according to the National Weather Service.
Authorities have warned of very dangerous avalanche conditions in mountainous areas of Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Washington and Oregon. Inland travelers were advised to stay off steep slopes and stay away from the bottom of steep slopes.
Areas of northern Montana could see temperatures dip below minus 30 degrees (minus 34 degrees Celsius) Saturday morning. High temperatures were expected to remain below freezing as far south as Oklahoma.
(McFetridge reported from Des Moines, Iowa. AP writers Sarah Brumfield, in Silver Spring, Md., and Matthew Brown in Billings, Mont., contributed to this report.)