At least 15 dead and nearly 800,000 homes without electricity in the US due to winter storm

New York.- At least 15 people have died due to the winter storm affecting two-thirds of the U.S. geography since this weekend and which has also led this Monday to 800,000 homes remaining without electricity.

So far, 15 people have died due to the cold or snow. In Texas, a 16-year-old died in Frisco in a sledding accident, according to the Police, while another person was found dead at a gas station in the state capital, Austin, due to apparent hypothermia.

Meanwhile, the mayor of New York, Zohran Mamdani, reported on Sunday that five people have died in the city.

"Although we still don't know the causes of their deaths, there is nothing that reminds us more strongly of the danger of extreme cold and how vulnerable many of our neighbors are, especially homeless New Yorkers," Mamdani indicated in a press conference. The councilman also ordered that the city's public schools hold online classes due to the storm. According to the mayor, more than 400,000 parents, students, and workers connected to their virtual classes this morning. On the other hand, fatalities have also been reported in Arkansas, Lehigh (Pennsylvania), Massachusetts, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Kansas, according to US media.

Sub-zero temperatures are expected almost every morning this week in several places

According to the National Weather Service (NWS, in English), the storm will continue to impact the northeastern part of the U.S. today with heavy snowfall as it moves away from the east coast. The agency also warns of freezing temperatures that will reach historical lows in the coming days. Specifically, sub-zero temperatures are expected almost every morning this week from the Northern Plains region to the Ohio Valley and the Northeast.

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The storm also left 778,862 homes without electricity, according to the platform poweroutage.us. The most affected states are Tennessee (247,300), Mississippi (153,620) and Louisiana (121,401). According to the portal, yesterday there were up to a million power outages. The storm has also led to the cancellation of more than 5,000 flights entering or leaving the country and the delay of another 4,400 routes, according to the website Flightaware.

Yesterday, the storm led to the worst day of flight cancellations since the covid-19 pandemic in 2020, with more than 11,000 flights canceled and 17,000 delayed, according to U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy.