At least 13 dead, 200,000 without power in US storms

Winter storms have ground the US to a halt with roads closed and planes grounded.

THE US northeast has been battered by heavy snow and strong winds as a mighty storm carved a violent arc across several states, killing more than a dozen people and snarling holiday travel.


The East Coast's largest cities - New York, Philadelphia and Boston - were seeing mostly high winds and rain Thursday morning.


In New York City, high winds caused major air traffic delays: 186 flights were cancelled outright at the three major airports - Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark.

''Winter weather has arrived for many parts of the state, so as a precaution we have opened the emergency operation centre to co-ordinate response efforts using all state and local resources,'' New York governor Andrew Cuomo said.


Although the storm was winding down late on Thursday, a warning for heavy snow remained in effect overnight in New Hampshire and western Maine, the National Weather Service said.

Tornado touches down in the US during a live weather broadcast

The storm was departing the region, the government forecasters said, ''but not before dumping another six to eight inches (15 to 20 centimetres) of snow over portions of Maine.''

So far, the heaviest snowfall has been recorded in northern New York, with 40cm on the ground in the town of Edwards, near the border with Canada.

And a new storm was already looming, forecast to hit portions of New England, the mid-Atlantic, and the Ohio valley in the last weekend of 2012, according to forecasters at

The building storm was predicted to bring more snow, including to regions that only got rain in the first onslaught, the forecasters said.

Dale Lamprey, who was clearing snow off the sidewalk outside the legislative office building in Concord, New Hampshire, already had several hours of shoveling under his belt by 8.30am Thursday local time.


He didn't expect it to get much better.

US storm winter weather

Large metal awnings sit ripped apart at Q's Car Wash in Centreville, Mississippi after twisters ripped through the US South over Christmas.


"Which is impossible."

In Canada, dozens of planes were grounded in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal due to the wintry weather, with 45cm of snow expected in the southern part of Quebec province.

Earlier in the week, nearly three dozen tornadoes were reported in the southern US states of Texas, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi.

More than 200,000 people lost power in Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas, and Entergy, the regional utility company, warned on Wednesday it could take crews up to a week to restore electricity in all areas.

The governors of both Mississippi and Alabama have declared states of emergency.

In Indiana, authorities dispatched nearly 600 trucks to clear highways and smaller state roads, and advised travellers to stay home if possible or else leave themselves extra time.

US winter storms bad weather New York

A man braves the cold to walk across the Williamsburg Bridge during a winter snowstorm in New York City.

The storms have claimed at least 13 lives - three in Arkansas, two each in Oklahoma, Indiana and Virginia, and one each in Louisiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas - according to an AFP tally of official and media reports.




The American Airlines flight arrived between 8pm and 9pm, but then ran over a snow patch and got stuck.



Christmas Weather Alabama Storms

Murphy High School teacher Ryan Little looks around at the student desks and other items scattered from classrooms demolished by a Christmas Day tornado at Murphy High School in Mobile, Alabama.

John Kwiatkowski, an Indianapolis-based meteorologist with the weather service, said: "The way I've been describing it is as a low-end blizzard, but that's sort of like saying a small Tyrannosaurus rex."




ome neighbors were less fortunate, their roofs peeled away and porches smashed by falling trees.



US winter storm weather

A cyclist waits to cross the street while a winter snow storm hits the region in New York City. Twelve people across the US have died in extreme winter weather over the Christmas holiday.




A man and a woman in Evansville, Indiana, were killed when the scooter they were riding went out of control on a snowy street and they were hit by a pickup truck.

Two passengers in a car on a sleet-slickened Arkansas highway were killed on Wednesday in a head-on collision, and two people, including a 76-year-old Milwaukee woman, were killed Tuesday on Oklahoma highways.


Other storm-related deaths include a man checking on a disabled vehicle near Allentown, Pennsylvania, who was struck and killed Wednesday night, and two people killed in separate crashes in Virginia.

Storm Travel Tips

A passenger waits for travel news at Midway airport in Chicago. Thousands of flights were cancelled over Christmas in the US due to wild winter weather.




Other states also had scattered outages.

As the storm moved east, New England state highway departments were treating roads and getting ready to mobilise with snowfall forecasts of a foot (0.3 metres) or more.

Few truckers were stopping into a TravelCentres of America truck stop in Willington, Connecticut, near the Massachusetts border overnight. Usually 20 to 30 an hour stop in overnight, but high winds and slushy roads had cut that to two to three people an hour.

"A lot of people are staying off the road," said Louis Zalewa, 31, who works there selling petrol and staffing the store.

The severe winter weather that hit parts of the central and southern United States on Christmas Day moves eastward. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.

"I think people are being smart."

As usual, winter-sports enthusiasts welcomed the snow.


"We watch the weather more carefully for cross-country skiing than we do for farming. And we're pretty diligent about farming. We're glued to the weather radio," said Mr Knight, who described the weather at the farm in Westbrook as being akin to the prizes in "Cracker Jacks - we don't know what we're going to get."


Cindy Williams stood near a home in McNeill, Mississippi, where its front had collapsed into a pile of wood and brick, a balcony and the porch ripped apart. Large oak trees were uprooted and winds sheared off treetops in a nearby grove.


"We are so thankful," she said.

"God took care of us."

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