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More than a million people in the US are in the dark after a “bomb cyclone” winter storm struck the country, closing highways, grounding flights and causing misery for Christmas travellers.
Heavy snow, howling winds and air so frigid it instantly turned boiling water into ice took hold of much of the country, including normally temperate southern states.
More than 200 million Americans were under weather warnings, as wind chills sent temperatures down as low as -55F (-48C), according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
In Hamburg, New York, 39-year-old Jennifer Orlando hunkered down with her husband. “I can’t see across the street,” she told AFP. “We’re not going anywhere.” Her power had been out for four hours after a vehicle slid into a power line on the highway, she said.
The biting cold is an immediate concern for hundreds of thousands of electricity customers who were without power, according to the tracker poweroutage.us.
In El Paso, Texas, migrants who had crossed from Mexico huddled for warmth in churches, schools and a civic centre, Rosa Falcon, a school teacher and volunteer told AFP.
But some still chose to stay outside in -15F temperatures because they feared attention from immigration authorities, she said.
In Chicago, Burke Patten of the Night Ministry, a nonprofit organisation dedicated to helping homeless people, said: “We’ve been handing out cold weather gear, including coats, hats, gloves, thermal underwear, blankets and sleeping bags, along with hand and foot warmers.”
Major Caleb Senn, the Chicago area commander for the Salvation Army, said the organisation had centres open for people to shelter from the fierce weather.
