Image: CBS
Tornadoes, snow, and flooding kill people across the United States.
A series of violent winter storms slammed over areas of the eastern United States and Canada, killing at least three people and knocking out power to over 500,000 residences.
In Florida, where multiple tornadoes were reported, strong winds flipped automobiles and knocked over homes.
According to FlightAware data, almost 1,300 flights into or out of the United States were cancelled on Tuesday.
Weather forced Vice President Kamala Harris’ plane to be diverted.
Mrs. Harris’s spokeswoman stated that “inclement weather” forced her jet from Atlanta to land in Virginia rather than Maryland on her route back to Washington, DC.
More than 630,000 households in the eastern United States, from Florida to New York State, were without power as of Tuesday evening.
Storms in Florida have blown roofs off homes and brought down power lines, prompting dozens of counties to declare a state of emergency.
By early Tuesday, twelve tornadoes had been reported in Florida, Alabama, and Georgia, causing substantial damage and necessitating search and rescue efforts in certain regions.
An 81-year-old woman was reportedly murdered in Houston County, Alabama, when a tornado blasted through the area, demolishing mobile homes and RVs.
According to officials, one person was murdered near Claremont, North Carolina, after a severe storm passed through a mobile home park.
In Clayton County, Georgia, one motorist died after a tree fell over a highway and smashed the driver’s car, according to officials.
Up to 1ft of snow is expected to hit various US states, from Colorado to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Image: GETTY IMAGES
A resident of Panama City, Florida, who lives across the street from a blown-over home, described the sound as ‘a goods train hitting a brick wall’.
“That’s how loud it was,” he said, according to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.
The storms also caused road closures in Panama City, ripped roofs off buildings, and dropped baseball-sized hail.
The city’s downtown region has been placed under curfew until 06:00EST (11:00GMT) on Wednesday morning.
“No one should be moving around in this area after dark,” stated the Bay County Sheriff’s Office on Facebook.
More violent storms are expected in the region and elsewhere in the eastern United States, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
Tornadoes with damaging wind gusts and hail are possible in parts of Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina.
Heavy rain throughout other portions of the eastern US, combined with gusts of up to 50 mph (80 kph), could cause flooding from the Florida Panhandle all the way north to southern Maine.
Four to five inches of rain had already fallen in South Carolina before dusk on Tuesday, flooding some places.
Over a foot of snow fell in the United States’ interior, stranding cars and disrupting presidential campaigning in Iowa.
A winter storm warning has been issued for southern Ontario, near Windsor, all the way up to central Quebec, where more than 1 foot of snow is expected.
According to Poweroutages.us, a violent uncommon blizzard in the Pacific Northwest region uprooted trees and knocked out power for over 25,000 customers in Washington state, as well as thousands more further north in Canada’s British Columbia province. Snow and severe winds shut down mountain passes, ferries, and sparked avalanche warnings.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul has warned that the storms could be “life threatening”.Image: GETTY IMAGES
Authorities relocated some 2,000 migrants sheltering in a city tent shelter on an airfield in Brooklyn to high school gymnasiums until the storms passed.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced a brief ground halt at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, one of the busiest in the country, owing to severe snow and ice.
A tornado warning also caused a halt at Florida’s Tampa International Airport.
Severe weather has also caused traffic delays in places such as Nebraska and Kansas, where state patrol has reacted to hundreds of weather-related incidents.
“It’s getting to the point where we will not be able to rescue you if you get stuck because we are having trouble getting around.”
The NWS anticipates the harsh weather to ease slightly into Wednesday, however snow showers are still expected in some of the already hit areas in the central US and northeast.