USA: Buffalo buried in snow – Flooding fears after ice melts

Buffalo has been put on alert USAas it is buried in snowafter the severe blizzard that hit the other side of the Atlanticwhile experts worry about intense floods after the ice melts.

As reported by Reuters, police officers and members of the National Guard go from house to house today in the neighborhoods of Buffalo to check that all residents are safeafter the deadly blizzard buried New York’s second largest city under 140cm of snow.

The Christmas storm, which was accompanied by polar temperatures, affected almost the entire country, up to the border with Mexico. Dozens of people died, 34 of them in Buffalo and greater Erie County and one in Niagara County.

Flood fears

THE Josh Weiss, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Forecast Center in College Park, Maryland, said only light snow is expected in Buffalo and Western New York today. “Fortunately, the snowfall is ending. They need a break. In Buffalo there is no forecast for sub-zero temperatures until next week,” he said.

Melting snow may, however, cause flooding. Rain is forecast for Western New York on Friday and Saturday.

At airports, mainly in Denver, Chicago and Baltimore, “turmoil” continues, due to thousands of flight cancellations over the weekend. Most airlines are back to near normal operations, but Southwest Airlines is not. Of the roughly 2,800 flights canceled this morning, more than 2,500 were by Southwest, according to the specialty website FlightAware. On Tuesday night, the company’s president and CEO, Bob Jordan, apologized to passengers. “We’re doing everything possible to get back to normal (…) I’m really sorry,” he said.

Speaking to CNN, the vice president of the Southwest Pilots Association Mike Santoro expressed his frustration, explaining that the company has long relied on an “antiquated” information system that makes it difficult to organize flights. “We’re tired of Southwest apologizing,” he said, calling on the company to make investments to modernize the system.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said he would look into “what happened to the system” of the company. “While we understand that it is impossible to control the weather, the line between an uncontrollable situation due to weather conditions and something that is the direct responsibility of the company was clearly crossed here,” he said.