NBC News broke the tragic headline amid the region’s first Nor'easter today that “Four dead as winter storm hits Northeast with 3 feet of snow” as more continued to fall across the region, keeping more and more people inside with the thermostat up and fireplace stoked to stay safe from the deadly cold front. With a deal still on Ice in Washington D.C. that would release millions of additional emergency energy assistance funding just in the nick of time. Cautioning as a centerpiece of their reporting on the storm and its dangerous path and aftermath, NBC noted that “nearly 10,000 customers in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, and Boston got nearly 7 inches of snow as of Thursday morning…More than 3 feet of snow as a major winter storm hit parts of New York and Pennsylvania…By morning, more than 40 inches had fallen in the New York cities of Binghamton and Endicott and in Litchfield, Pennsylvania. More than 10 inches of snow and sleet covered New York's Central Park as of morning, surpassing the 4.8 inches that fell all last winter, the National Weather Service said.”
With road crews working overtime amid the added pressure of Covid-19 and hundreds of accidents along most of the Northeast’s main interstates, the New York Times painted a grim scenario in the midst of its arrival that “the storm, a nor’easter, is expected to stretch from North Carolina up through Virginia before advancing north, blanketing some areas with up to two feet of snow, the National Weather Service said. The onward march of severe weather could also bring ice accumulations, tree damage, power outages, closures of schools and businesses, and dangerous travel conditions. The storm will unleash a hazardous mix of rain and then heavy snow starting Wednesday, kicking off in western North Carolina and southwest Virginia, where it will let loose sheets of freezing rain. Forecasters warned there could be power outages, downed trees and hazardous travel. The relentless freezing rain at the start of the storm could gradually compound into layers of ice more than a quarter-inch thick…weighing on branches and electricity infrastructure.”
Affecting residents’ ability to access roads to get the first round of Covid vaccines among any number of other holiday priorities involving everything from package transport and delivery to commuter travel, Governor Andrew Cuomo immediately declared a state of emergency, alerting New Yorkers that “State and local emergency response assets and personnel have been staged throughout the state and are ready to help keep all New Yorkers safe as this powerful system moves through the Northeast. This is our first major storm of the season and I'm urging the public to stay home this evening and throughout the overnight hours to let our crews do their jobs and clear the roads. Just remember - if you're stuck in traffic, our plows are too.”
For those stranded at home facing utility outages throughout the Northeast, utility first-responders were working overtime to restore power, local station PIX Channel 11 reported on the damage that throughout New York, “as of Thursday morning, there were about 9,100 power outages and there had been about 600 automobile accidents, Cuomo said.” Meanwhile, across the state line in New Jersey, Channel 11 added that “over 4000 customers were without powers throughout the state and…at the peak, the number of outages was around 13,000 statewide.”
Shining the spotlight back on the Nation’s capital amid Congressional in-fighting over a long-looming Covid winter relief package set to include MILLIONS of dollars in badly needed energy assistance, CNN put this priority front and center the reality that “to keep the heat on this winter, Congress needs to help families pay their utility bills.” Quoting from a story by NEADA President Mark Wolf, the network highlighted “the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) is the primary federal program designed to help financially strapped families pay their utility bills. Regrettably, current funding for LIHEAP is only enough to help about one out of six eligible households and cannot be stretched to help the newly unemployed with their growing bills unless additional funding is secured through Congress. The $900 million in supplemental funds that were provided for LIHEAP by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act last spring are now fully deployed and distributed to local agencies to help struggling families. And those funds will only be able to reach a fraction of the households that need support. 33 million families will be eligible for LIHEAP this year. That's 5 million more than last year, as a direct result of virus-related layoffs. Many of these families are also behind on their rent, mortgage and other bills…With so many highly complex problems facing lawmakers to reduce the economic pain of the pandemic, Congress doesn't need to reinvent the wheel to fix the problem of unpaid utility bills. LIHEAP works and the program needs to be fully funded.”
Reporting by J.B.
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/us/noreaster-weather-snow.html
https://www.cnn.com/2020/12/17/perspectives/utility-bills-stimulus/index.html