Storms that turned roads into icy death traps, froze people from Oregon to Tennessee and even sent a plane skidding off a runway are expected to hit both coasts with another round of weather chaos Friday.
New York City – where it only snowed significantly on Tuesday for the first time in more than two years – was in the spotlight as the National Weather Service issued warnings for just over 2 inches (5 centimeters) of snow through Friday in the metropolitan area in New Jersey and It also snows in Pennsylvania.
On Thursday, an American Airlines plane skidded off a snowy runway in Rochester, New York, after a flight from Philadelphia. No injuries were reported.
On the West Coast, Oregon's governor declared a statewide emergency Thursday night after several counties requested assistance “as they enter their sixth day of severe impacts” from freezing rain-filled weather.
Thousands of residents have been without power in parts of Oregon's Willamette Valley since Saturday after an ice storm caused widespread damage.
“We lost power on Saturday and were told yesterday it would take over two weeks to get it back,” said Jamie Kenworthy, a real estate agent in Jasper, Lane County.
Over the past two weeks, storms have pummeled much of the United States with rain, snow, wind and freezing temperatures, disrupting traffic and air travel and causing at least 45 deaths.
That included three people who were electrocuted by a downed power line in Portland, Oregon, on Wednesday. A man trying to get out of a parked car obscured by the wire died with a baby in his arms after he slipped on the icy driveway and hit the live wire. The baby survived.
His pregnant 21-year-old girlfriend and her 15-year-old brother died trying to help him. Her father, Ronald Briggs, told KGW-TV that he watched her death helplessly. “I have six children. I lost two of them in one day,” he said.
Crews had made steady progress restoring power to tens of thousands of customers in Oregon after back-to-back storms, but as of Friday morning more than 107,000 were without power, according to poweroutage.us.
Portland Public Schools canceled classes for the fourth year in a row over fears of icy roads and water damage to buildings. State offices in Portland were also closed Friday.
In Washington, DC, the snow fell gently and the streets around the US Capitol were silent. For the second time in a week, schools closed again and the government faced a two-hour delay. However, President Joe Biden still planned to host seniors from across the country on Friday and was still headed to his beach house in Delaware for the weekend. The weather service expected 4 to 6 inches (10 to 15 centimeters) in the region.
Schools also remained closed Friday due to weather conditions in many counties in Maryland, Northern Virginia and West Virginia, where the governor declared a state of emergency on Thursday.
The bitter weather continued in the South, where a new layer of ice formed over parts of Tennessee on Thursday, part of a larger cold snap sweeping the country.
Authorities blamed at least 14 deaths in Tennessee on the system, which has dumped more than 9 inches (22.8 centimeters) of snow since Sunday on parts of Nashville, a city where such accumulations rarely occur. Temperatures also fell below freezing (minus 17.7 degrees Celsius) in parts of the state, resulting in the greatest demand for electricity ever in the seven states served by the Tennessee Valley Authority.
The dead included a box truck driver who slid into a tractor-trailer on a highway, a man who fell through a skylight while cleaning a roof and a woman who died of hypothermia after being found lifeless in her home.
Icy roads in Tennessee made travel treacherous Thursday evening. In Anderson County, outside Knoxville, the sheriff's department said in a social media post that emergency crews were struggling to respond to many crashes amid the worst road conditions in years because their own vehicles were stuck and out of service.
On Thursday, Will Compton of Open Table Nashville, a nonprofit organization that helps the homeless, stopped his SUV in front of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Country Music Museum to hand out warm hats, blankets, protein drinks and socks in the freezing rain.
“People who are poor and homeless are hit the hardest,” Compton said.
Aaron Robison, 62, lived in one of the city's warming centers and said the cold didn't bother him when he was younger. But now that he had arthritis in his hip and was dependent on two dogs, he needed to escape the cold.
“Thank God for the people who help people on the streets. This is a blessing,” he said.
Since the extreme cold began last week, more than 60 oil spills and other environmental incidents have been reported in North Dakota's Bakken oil fields, where regulators say wind chills as low as minus 70 degrees (minus 56.6 C) have stressed workers and equipment . Make accidents more likely.
In Washington state, five people – most of them believed to be homeless – died in just four days in Seattle last week from exposure to cold as temperatures fell well below freezing, the coroner's office said.
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