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At least 13 people have died in connection with the brutal cold and winter storm that has hammered much of the United States, with six of those deaths occurring in the New York City area alone.
The deadly cold has settled in across the nation following a massive winter storm that brought snow, ice, and freezing temperatures to more than 250 million Americans under cold weather alerts. The frigid conditions are expected to linger for days, raising concerns for those without shelter or power.
In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani confirmed that seven residents died over the weekend as the city experienced some of the coldest temperatures and highest snow accumulation in recent years. While the exact causes of death are still under investigation, Mamdani noted that some of the individuals had previously "interactions with our shelter system."
"We haven't seen this kind of cold for eight years, and it is debilitating," Mamdani said during a Monday briefing at City Hall, according to CNN.
Five of the individuals were found Saturday going into Sunday morning when snow began to fall, with two more discovered on Sunday. On Sunday morning, authorities found a 52-year-old man unconscious and unresponsive on 96th Street in Queens, with the Medical Examiner's Office set to determine the exact cause of death.
The winter storm has been deadly beyond New York. Officials in Kentucky are investigating whether three deaths were caused by the storm, while two men in Louisiana died of hypothermia. In Massachusetts, a woman was killed when a snowplow backed into her in a transit authority parking lot, and two teenagers died in sledding accidents in Arkansas and Texas.
The storm has left more than 800,000 customers without power, primarily in southern states where ice has wreaked havoc on trees and power lines. Tennessee currently has the most outages with over 257,000 customers affected, followed by Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.
The Nashville Electric Service reported a peak of 230,000 outages, surpassing the previous record set during the damaging May 2020 derecho. Power restoration efforts are expected to be "prolonged" according to several electrical utilities.
Record-breaking cold temperatures have been reported across the country. Tulsa, Oklahoma dropped to 0 degrees early Monday, breaking the previous record low of 7 degrees set in 1963. Fayetteville, Arkansas set a record low of minus-9 degrees, smashing the previous record of 7 degrees set in 1985.
The storm has also caused massive travel disruptions. Airlines canceled more than 11,600 flights on Sunday according to FlightAware, marking the highest cancellation day since the COVID-19 pandemic. As of Monday morning, nearly 4,000 additional flights had been canceled with over 2,000 delayed.
Snow accumulation has been significant across the country, with at least a foot of snow reported in 18 states. The highest total so far is 31 inches in New Mexico, according to NOAA's Weather Prediction Center. Boston measured 16.7 inches of snow on Sunday, its eighth-most snow in a calendar day on record.
With the brutal cold expected to continue through the week, New York City has maintained a "code blue" emergency measure, which relaxes homeless shelter intake procedures and deploys 24-hour outreach teams to bring vulnerable individuals inside.
Public schools in New York City were closed Monday, with students learning remotely. School buildings are expected to reopen and classes are expected to resume on Tuesday.
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