Disasters & Accidents

Cold wave sweeps across US, forcing cancellation of flights and sporting events

New York,United States, Jan 14 (EFE). – A cold wave affecting much of the United States has forced the cancellation of hundreds of flights and sporting events.

A Buffalo Bills vs. Pittsburgh Steelers NFL wildcard game scheduled for Sunday afternoon in Buffalo, New York, has been pushed back to Monday.

According to the FlightAware platform, which monitors air traffic, more than 750 flights were canceled nationwide on Sunday and another 1,200 were delayed.

On Saturday, there were more than 1,100 flight cancellations, and on Friday, more than 2,000.

Among airports hardest hit were O’Hare in Chicago, Illinois, and Metropolitan Wayne County in Detroit, Michigan.

In Chicago, the first death from the cold was recorded in the suburb of Schiller Park after a 60-year-old man died on Thursday.

The power grid has also been affected, according to the website PowerOutage.us.

In Oregon, in the northwestern United States, about 158,000 people were without power after a winter storm left at least one person dead of hypothermia.

The Midwest was hit by heavy snow and wind gusts of more than 70 kilometers per hour (43 mph).

The winter storms have also affected the Iowa caucuses, the first official meeting of the race to become the Republican nominee for president of the United States.

Former President Donald Trump (2017-2021) encouraged his supporters on Saturday not to be intimidated by the extreme cold, and asked them to go to the polls en masse on Monday to support him.

Trump had planned to arrive in Iowa much earlier, but the heavy snow that fell on Friday delayed his trip and caused the cancellation of most of his public events.

Nikki Haley, who has been climbing in the polls but is still far behind the former president, was forced to reschedule some of her events online.

The National Weather Service warned Sunday that 95 million citizens are in areas affected by a cold air alert.

Southern states, such as Tennessee or Arkansas, could suffer winter storms.EFE

jdg/mcd

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