Northeast US sees more snow from tail end of colossal winter storm, at least 25 deaths reported
New York (AP): More snow piled up across the US Northeast on Monday under the tail end of a colossal winter storm that brought lingering misery to parts of the South, where freezing rain left hundreds of thousands shivering without electricity. At least 25 deaths were reported amid the severe weather.
Deep snow — over a foot extending in a 2,100-kilometre swath from Arkansas to New England — halted traffic, cancelled flights and triggered wide school closures Monday.
The National Weather Service said areas north of Pittsburgh got up to 20 inches of snow and faced wind chills as low as minus 31 degrees Celsius late Monday into Tuesday.
A rising death toll included two people run over by snowplows in Massachusetts and Ohio, fatal sledding accidents in Arkansas and Texas, and a woman whose body was found covered in snow by police with bloodhounds after she was last seen leaving a Kansas bar. In New York City, officials said eight people were found dead outdoors in the course of the frigid weekend.
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There were more than 750,000 power outages in the nation by Monday midafternoon, according to poweroutage.com. Most of them were in the South, where weekend blasts of freezing rain caused tree limbs and power lines to snap, inflicting crippling outages on northern Mississippi and parts of Tennessee.
Parts of Mississippi were reeling in the aftermath of the state's worst ice storm since 1994. Officials scrambled Monday to get cots, blankets, bottled water and generators to warming stations in hard-hit areas.
The University of Mississippi, where most students hunkered down without power Monday, cancelled classes for the entire week as its Oxford campus remained coated in treacherous ice. Oxford Mayor Robyn Tannehill said on social media that so many trees, limbs and power lines had fallen that “it looks like a tornado went down every street.”
A pair of burly, falling tree branches damaged real estate agent Tim Phillips' new garage, broke a window and cut off power to his home in Oxford. He said half of his neighbours had homes or vehicles damaged.
“It's just one of those things that you try to prepare for,” Phillips said, “but this one was just unreal.”
The US had more than 8,000 flight delays and cancellations nationwide Monday, according to flight tracker flightaware.com. On Sunday, 45 per cent of US flights got cancelled, making it the highest day for cancellations since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.
More light to moderate snow was forecast in New England through Monday evening.
New York City saw its snowiest day in years, with 11 inches falling on Central Park. Main roads throughout the city were largely clear Monday morning, but pedestrians had to plod through snow on some sidewalks and multiple subway lines with above-ground tracks saw delays.
Bitter cold grips much of the nation
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Meanwhile, bitter cold followed in the storm's wake. Many communities across the Midwest, South, and Northeast awakened Monday to subzero weather. The entire Lower 48 states were forecast to have their coldest average low temperature of minus 12.3 C — since January 2014.
Record warmth in Florida was the only thing keeping that average from going even colder, said former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist Ryan Maue, who calculates national averages based on National Weather Service data.
In the Nashville, Tennessee, area, electricity was back for thousands of homes and businesses Monday while more than 170,000 others awoke bundled up in powerless homes after subfreezing temperatures overnight. Many hotels were sold out overnight to residents escaping dark and frigid homes.
Alex Murray booked a Nashville hotel room for his family to ensure they had a working freezer to preserve pumped breast milk to feed their 6-month-old daughter. Anticipating a long wait until power gets restored at his home, Murray planned to extend their hotel stay through Wednesday.
“I know there's many people that may not be able to find a place or pay for a place or anything like that, or even travel,” Murray said Monday. “So, we were really fortunate.”
Storm leads to deaths in a number of states
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In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani's office said at least eight people were found dead outside as temperatures plunged between Saturday and Monday morning, though the cause of their deaths remained under investigation.
In Emporia, Kansas, police searching with bloodhounds found a 28-year-old teacher dead and covered in snow. Police said she had was last seen leaving a bar without her coat and phone.
Police said snowplows backed into two people who died in Norwood, Massachusetts, and Dayton, Ohio. And authorities said two teenagers, one in Arkansas and another in Texas, were killed in sledding accidents.
Officials reported three deaths apiece in Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Tennessee; two deaths in Mississippi; and one in New Jersey.
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Unruly scenes witnessed in Punjab Assembly
Chandigarh (PTI): The Punjab Assembly on Friday witnessed high drama on Friday after Congress MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira made an allegedly objectionable remark against Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann during an intense argument over the alleged use of mobile phone in the house by the legislator.
During the one-day special session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha here, Mann accused Khaira of using a mobile phone when Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan was reading out an official resolution on the revision of wages.
After rising from his seat, the chief minister pointed to the speaker, claiming that Khaira is busy on his mobile phone and urged him to ask the Congress MLA what Sandhwan had said about the resolution.
The speaker then asked Khaira to maintain order in the house and listen to the resolution carefully.
Mann then asked Khaira, "Why don't you go out and then use it (mobile phone)," which led to a strong verbal altercation during which the opposition MLA hurled an accusation against the chief minister. Meanwhile, the speaker appealed for order and insisted that the chair be addressed.
However, both Mann and Khaira continued arguing and could be seen pointing fingers at each other as the proceedings of the house were disrupted.
The AAP MLAs also rose from their seats with Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema condemning Khaira for his conduct and demanded action against him.
Cheema further alleged that Khaira "always tries to disturb the house" as he spoke about his conduct in the assembly.
The incident occurred as an official resolution on the revision of wages was presented at the special session by Labour Minister Tarunpreet Singh Sond who said it paid homage to labourers on the International Workers' Day.
"Workers are the axis of construction of the nation, the community, the state and society. Every construction project succeeds only through their blood and sweat," the resolution read.
As per the resolution, "The base rate of minimum wages for the working class in Punjab was last revised in the year 2012. Although the dearness allowance has continued to increase since 2012, there has been no increase in the base rate of minimum wages.
On this sacred occasion of May Day, in this special session of the legislative assembly, this house proposes to revise and increase the minimum wages of labourers and strongly recommends to the government to take a decision regarding the increase of minimum wages for workers, so that the contributions of the workers can be acknowledged." PRK
