death
Shipbreaking worker falls to death in Chattogram's Sitakunda
A 24-year-old shipbreaking worker died after falling off a ship in Chattogram's Sitakunda Thursday night, police said.
The deceased was identified as Abdul Rahim Tushar from Kurigram.
Also Read: Worker killed, 2 hurt in Ctg shipyard
Tushar fell off the ship while working on it at Tahsin Shipbreaking Yard in Sonaichhari union near the Bay of Bengal, Md Tofail Ahmed, officer-in-charge of Sitakunda Model Police Station, said.
"Tushar was rushed to Chattogram Medical College Hospital with a critical head injury. He was declared dead at the hospital at 10pm," Tofail added.
Bangladesh reports one more dengue death, 10 new cases
One more person died from dengue in the 24 hours to Friday morning.
With the new number, the official death toll from dengue rose to two this year, according to the Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS).
Also, 10 people were hospitalised with the mosquito-borne disease. Of the new patients, four were admitted to hospitals in Dhaka and six outside it.
One hundred and twenty-seven dengue patients, including 53 in the capital, are now receiving treatment at hospitals across the country.
The DGHS has recorded 370 dengue cases and 241 recoveries so far this year.
Read more: Dengue: Death toll rises to 250 as 3 more die
The country recorded 281 dengue deaths in 2022 – the highest on record after 179 deaths recorded in 2019.
The DGHS recorded 62,423 dengue cases and 61,971 recoveries in the past year.
Mentally challenged youth killed by robbers in Cox’s Bazar
A mentally handicapped youth was killed during a robbery at his family's premises in the Charpara area of Ramu upazila in Cox’s Bazar - but police and local administration are treating the incident with indifference.
According to the deceased Meer Kashem's relatives, they tortured and murdered him after he caught them in the act.
Faruk, son-in-law of Kashem's uncle Mohammad Ali, was injured in the incident as he tried to stop the robbers from taking away all the cows.
“One of them shot at me but missed,” said Faruk. The hustlers tried to loot seven cows from the house but could get away with only two.
Kashem's body was found in a nearby vegetable field the morning after the robbery.
“He had gone missing following the incident. We discovered his body in the morning. Ropes were wrapped around his eyes-mouth, hands, and feet,” said Mohammad Ali.
Officer-in-charge (investigation) of Ramu police station, Arup Kumar Chowdhury, went to the spot and sent the body for autopsy.
But the family claims the police weren’t helpful in the incident. “One police officer used derogatory terms toward my ninth-grader daughter,” said Mohammad Ali.
“They slammed us for calling the 999 helpline,” he added.
In fact the police are reluctant to accept that Kashem's death was even related to the robbery.
Anwarul Islam, officer-in-charge of Ramu police station, said, “The robbery occurred at night, but the body was found the next morning. We cannot yet say whether these incidents are related or not. We are investigating.”
Zafar Alam, the local UP member, almost justified the killing with his comment: "As Kashem was mentally handicapped, he used to shout at unknown people. Maybe he saw them in the night and started shouting. That’s why they tortured and killed him”.
Livestock theft has increased at Ramu upazila in recent times. Five days ago five cows were looted from another house in the same upazila.
Read more: Teen worker dies jumping out of spa during DNCC drive
Teen worker dies jumping out of spa during DNCC drive
An 18-year-old girl died of her injuries after she and others tried to escape a spa centre in Gulshan, during a drive by Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) on Wednesday.
Farzana Begum, 18, was the wife of one Zahid Hasan and a resident of Batiaghata upazila in Khulna. She had been living with her family in the capital’s Khilkhet.
Alamgir Hossain, sub-inspector (SI) of Gulshan police station, said that two women who jumped off the roof of a building housing the spa centre during the DNCC drive and sustained serious injuries, were taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
Farzana was declared dead by the physicians while the other was undergoing treatment at the emergency department, he said.
An officer who took part in the drive said the women fell when a team led by an executive magistrate of the DNCC reached the spot to conduct a drive against commercial activities in residential areas.
Farzana’s husband said his wife and her elder sister Afsana left home for work at the spa at around 11am on Wednesday.
Later he came to know that Farzana had an accident and her elder sister was detained at the police station, he said.
Read more: DNCC evicts some 100 shops in Rayerbazar
Protesters in Cambridge demand justice for Bangladeshi-American shot by police
Expressing anger and frustration, several hundred protesters on Monday (January 09, 2023) demanded justice for a Bangladeshi American college student who was shot and killed by police in the Boston suburb of Cambridge last week, a shooting that has drawn attention from Bangladeshi media.
Sayed Faisal, 20, a student at the University of Massachusetts Boston, was shot on January 4 while advancing on officers with what police described as a kukri and after a less-than-lethal “sponge round” failed to stop him, authorities have said. A kukri is a short sword with an angled blade that originated in South Asia.
Protesters at the rally outside Cambridge City Hall organized by the Bangladesh Association of New England held signs saying “Justice for Faisal” and “Faisal needed help not bullets,” while his friends and teachers remembered his friendliness, his positive outlook and his intelligence.
An independent judicial inquest into the shooting has been initiated. The findings of that inquest will be forwarded to the Middlesex district attorney’s office to decide whether charges are warranted, a process that could take a year or more.
Read More: Killing of Bangladeshi-American in US: Human chain in front of MoFA demands justice
Faisal, who was known as Prince by his family, was an only child who was never violent and had never been involved with law enforcement before, his parents said in a statement released by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“We are completely devastated and in disbelief that our son is gone,” the Cambridge residents said. “Prince was the most wonderful, loving, caring, generous, supportive, and deeply family-oriented person. He loved to travel, create art, and play sports with his friends.”
Cambridge Mayor Sumbul Siddiqui, City Manager Yi-An Huang, Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan, and Cambridge Police Commissioner Christine Elow are all expected to attend a community meeting on Thursday to discuss the shooting and answer questions from the public.
The City Council has also scheduled a special meeting on Jan. 18 to discuss protocols, processes, and training of city police.
Read More: Momen slams Bangladeshi expat's killing in US, denounces hate crime
Authorities have not released the name of the officer who opened fire. The officer, who is on paid administrative leave, is a seven-year department veteran who has never been the subject of a citizen’s complaint, police spokesperson Jeremy Warnick said Monday.
According to the preliminary investigation, police received a 911 call early last Wednesday afternoon from a resident who reported seeing a man jumping out of an apartment window with a machete which he appeared to be using to cut himself.
Officers and paramedics found the man, identified as Faisal, bleeding in an alley.
Faisal saw police, who requested that he drop the weapon, and ran for several blocks.
Read More: We support calls for “thorough, transparent investigation” over Bangladeshi-American student's death: US Embassy
He then reportedly moved toward the police while still holding the weapon, even when they fired a less-than-lethal round at him. He continued to advance and one officer fired a gun, striking Faisal, who later died at a hospital, authorities said.
We support calls for “thorough, transparent investigation” over Bangladeshi-American student's death: US Embassy
The US Embassy in Dhaka has extended its condolences to the family and loved ones of Bangladeshi-American student of University of Massachusetts, Sayed Faisal.
US Embassy Spokesperson Jeff Ridenour released a statement in this regard today.
He said they support “calls for a thorough and transparent investigation” by the District Attorney’s Office.
Earlier, a human chain was formed in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Dhaka, demanding justice for the "killing" of Sayed Faisal.
Also Read: Killing of Bangladeshi-American in US: Human chain in front of MoFA demands justice
The protest took place when US National Security Council’s Senior Director for South Asia Rear Admiral Eileen Laubacher is visiting Bangladesh. She had a scheduled meeting with Foreign Secretary Masud Bin Momen at state guesthouse Padma this afternoon.
The protestors at the human chain shouted: “We want justice.
A Cambridge Police officer shot and killed an allegedly armed Faisal on Wednesday, prompting dozens to protest police brutality and call for transparency at Cambridge City Hall on Thursday.
Journalist and columnist Ajoy Dasgupta described the incident as “very unfortunate” and said that the US police shot dead the Bangladeshi who was not found guilty of any crime.
“We want justice for him,” he said.
Death of Fardin Noor: Order on Bushra's bail application Sunday
A Dhaka court set next Sunday (January 8) to pass its order on the latest bail application on behalf of Amatullah Bushra, who has been languishing in jail for almost two months now in a homicide case filed over the death of Buet student Fardin Noor (Parash), despite investigation agencies failing to find any evidence connecting her to her friend's death.
Judge Tahsin Iftekhar of Additional Metropolitan Sessions Judge's Court-7 set the date after hearing the bail petition, according to two members of Bushra’s legal team, lawyers Mokhesur Rahman and Abdur Rahman Hawladar.
Unlike Bushra's previous bail applications, which were opposed by the state on advice of the investigation agency - which was treating Fardin's death as a murder - this time the hearing took place in the context of both the Detective Branch, the court-appointed investigation agency, and the Rapid Action Battalion, which carried out its own 'shadow' investigation, having decisively shifted away from their earlier position that Fardin was murdered. Since mid-December, the two agencies have converged around a conclusion that Fardin committed suicide.
That did not stop the state from opposing Bushra's bail yet again today though.
Bushra, a 3rd year student of East West University who became friends with Fardin on the debate circuit, was the last known person to have seen Fardin on the day of his disappearance (Nov. 4). In fact they were together for hours before Fardin dropped her off at her student accommodation in Rampura close to 10pm - exactly as Bushra had said from the start and CCTV footage later confirmed.
Police picked her up on November 10, three days after Fardin's body washed up in the Shitalakkhya River, and hours after Fardin's father filed a case alleging murder - where the sole accused to be named was Bushra. It may be mentioned here that initial reports and even statements by forensic doctors who dealt with Fardin's body at Narayanganj General Hospital, made a very strong case for a homicide. Even the investigation agencies were bought on this version of events.
Bushra was taken on remand subsequently for five days, and her lawyers today reiterated how nothing untoward or suspicious was uncovered. Even the friendship the two shared was found to be platonic, her lawyers noted while talking to reporters outside the court premises. They prayed before the court for bail on humanitarian grounds.
State counsel Advocate Shamim Hasan, however, still found reason to oppose her bail petition - saying that if released despite being an accused in a murder investigation, she may "influence the witnesses of the case" while out on bail.
Fardin’s father Noor Uddin Rana was present at the court during the hearing, as it wrapped up without any order, nor any date for it. Later in the evening it was announced that an order would be passed on Sunday, the court's next working day.
Read more: DB to apprise court that Bushra has no link to Fardin’s death, says its chief
According to the investigation agencies' last version of how things transpired, Fardin committed suicide by jumping off the Sultana Kamal Bridge into the Shitalakkhya River around 2:37am on November 5, some 4-and-a-half hours after he dropped off Bushra. They have produced grainy, almost pitch dark CCTV footage in support of their claims, from an establishment at the bottom of the bridge. It shows an unrecognisable figure (too dark) appear at the side of the bridge at the said time, climb over the railing and dangle off it for some moments, before falling into the river. Fardin never learned to swim, according to DB.
But it's all very circumstantial. The only reason investigators can claim the dark figure falling into the river is Fardin, is because cellphone tracking of his phone number placed Fardin on the bridge at the time. Prior to that his phone had pinged various towers indicating his presence in Keraniganj, Johnson Road, Gulistan and Jatrabari. In Jatrabari police were able to get their hands on CCTV footage of him getting into a Laguna around 2:03am. His back is to the camera as he walks towards the laguna, which raised questions initially as to whether it is really him, but it's one of the few points on which the family agrees with the police.
Nooruddin Rana told UNB he does believe it is Fardin who gets on the Laguna, but adds: "The way he is walking shows he was tense, disturbed by something. He was in distress." Investigators have been less than convincing however, on what could have driven an intelligent young man with a seemingly bright future ahead of him to suicide. The DB chief's attempt at posthumous psychoanalysis came in for criticism as he brought up everything from Fardin's fondness for the novels of Albert Camus and Friedrich Nietzsche (nihilist philosophers) to random quotations attributed to Fardin, purportedly showing suicidal tendencies. Some of their interpretations clearly miss, or perhaps deliberately distort, what is meant, or overstate their significance, his friends say.
The Detective Branch also came across as insensitive when bringing up his family situation at home, and his supposedly slipping - although still far from disastrous - grades at BUET, as contributing factors to his suicide.
Read more: Fardin Noor: Home Minister puts faith in RAB, DB investigation
Foreign Minister’s sister Ayesha Muzakkir no more
Ayesha Muzakkir, elder sister of Foreign Minister Abdul Momen and late finance minister AMA Muhit, passed away on Tuesday. She was 93.
She breathed her last at around 5:30 am at her residence in Sylhet.
Ayesha Muzakkir is survived by her eight daughters, many grandchildren, nine siblings, and many well-wishers.
She will be buried at their family graveyard next to the grave of her late husband Mohammad Muzakkir after the Janaza at Haji Muzaffar Dakhil Madrasa Mosque premises in Agunshi area of Moulvibazar today.
Barbara Walters, news pioneer and 'The View' creator, dies
Barbara Walters, the intrepid interviewer, anchor and program host who blazed the way as the first woman to become a TV news superstar during a career remarkable for its duration and variety, has died. She was 93.
ABC broke into its broadcast to announce Walters' death on air Friday night.
“She lived her life with no regrets. She was a trailblazer not only for female journalists, but for all women,” her publicist Cindi Berger also said in a statement, adding Walters died peacefully at her New York home.
An ABC spokesperson did not have an immediate comment Friday night beyond sharing a statement from Bob Iger, the CEO of ABC parent The Walt Disney Company.
“Barbara was a true legend, a pioneer not just for women in journalism but for journalism itself,” Iger said.
During nearly four decades at ABC, and before that at NBC, Walters’ exclusive interviews with rulers, royalty and entertainers brought her celebrity status that ranked with theirs, while placing her at the forefront of the trend that made stars of TV reporters.
Late in her career, she gave infotainment a new twist with “The View,” a live ABC weekday kaffee klatsch with an all-female panel for whom any topic was on the table and who welcomed guests ranging from world leaders to teen idols. With that side venture and unexpected hit, Walters considered “The View” the “dessert” of her career.
A statement from the show said Walters created “The View” in 1997 “to champion women's voices.”
“We’re proud to be part of her legacy," the statement said.
Walters made headlines in 1976 as the first female network news anchor, with an unprecedented $1 million salary that drew gasps. Her drive was legendary as she competed — not just with rival networks, but with colleagues at her own network — for each big “get” in a world jammed with more and more interviewers, including female journalists following in her trail.
“I never expected this!” Walters said in 2004, taking stock of her success. “I always thought I’d be a writer for television. I never even thought I’d be in front of a camera.”
But she was a natural on camera, especially when plying notables with searing questions.
“I’m not afraid when I’m interviewing, I have no fear!” Walters told The Associated Press in 2008.
In a voice that never lost its trace of her native Boston accent or its substitution of Ws-for-Rs, Walters lobbed blunt and sometimes giddy questions, often sugarcoated with a hushed, reverential delivery.
“Offscreen, do you like you?” she once asked actor John Wayne, while Lady Bird Johnson was asked whether she was jealous of her late husband’s reputation as a ladies’ man.
In May 2014, she taped her final episode of “The View” amid much ceremony to end a five-decade career in television (although she continued to make occasional TV appearances ). During a commercial break, a throng of TV newswomen she had paved the way for — including Diane Sawyer, Katie Couric, Robin Roberts and Connie Chung — posed for a group portrait.
“I have to remember this on the bad days,” Walters said quietly, “because this is the best.”
Her career began with no such inklings of majesty.
Walters graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1943 and eventually landed a “temporary,” behind-the-scenes assignment at “Today” in 1961. Shortly afterward, what was seen as the token woman’s slot among the staff’s eight writers opened. Walters got the job and began to make occasional on-air appearances with offbeat stories such as “A Day in the Life of a Nun” or the tribulations of a Playboy bunny. For the latter, she donned bunny ears and high heels to work at the Playboy Club.
As she appeared more frequently, she was spared the title of “'Today' Girl” that had been attached to her predecessors. But she had to pay her dues, sometimes sprinting between interviews to do dog food commercials.
She had the first interview with Rose Kennedy after the assassination of her son, Robert, as well as with Princess Grace of Monaco and President Richard Nixon. She traveled to India with Jacqueline Kennedy, to China with Nixon and to Iran to cover the shah’s gala party. But she faced a setback in 1971 with the arrival of a new host, Frank McGee, who insisted she wait for him to ask three questions before she could open her mouth during interviews with “powerful persons.”
Although she gained celebrity status in her own right, the celebrity world was familiar to her even as a little girl. Her father was an English-born booking agent who turned an old Boston church into a nightclub. Lou Walters opened other clubs in Miami and New York, and young Barbara spent her after-hours with regulars such as Joseph Kennedy and Howard Hughes.
Those were the good times. But her father made and lost fortunes in a dizzying cycle that taught her success was always at risk of being snatched away, and could neither be trusted nor enjoyed.
Sensing greater freedom and opportunities awaiting her outside the NBC studio, she hit the road to produce more exclusive interviews, including with Nixon chief of staff H.R. Haldeman.
By 1976, she had been granted the title of “Today” co-host and was earning $700,000 a year. But when ABC signed her to a $5 million, five-year contract, she was branded the “the million-dollar baby.”
Reports failed to note her job duties would be split between the network’s entertainment division and ABC News, then mired in third place. Meanwhile, Harry Reasoner, her seasoned “ABC Evening News” co-anchor, was said to resent her salary and celebrity orientation.
It wasn’t just the shaky relationship with her co-anchor that brought Walters problems.
Comedian Gilda Radner satirized her on “Saturday Night Live” as a rhotacistic commentator named “Baba Wawa.” And after her interview with a newly elected President Jimmy Carter in which Walters told Carter “be wise with us,” CBS correspondent Morley Safer publicly derided her as “the first female pope blessing the new cardinal.”
It was a period that seemed to mark the end of everything she’d worked for, she later recalled.
“I thought it was all over: ‘How stupid of me ever to have left NBC!’”
But salvation arrived in the form of a new boss: ABC News president Roone Arledge moved her out of the co-anchor slot and into special projects. Meanwhile, she found success with her quarterly primetime interview specials. She became a frequent contributor to newsmagazine “20/20,”and later co-host. A perennial favorite was her review of the year’s “10 Most Fascinating People.”
By 2004, when she stepped down from “20/20,” she had logged more than 700 interviews, ranging from Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and Moammar Gadhafi, to Michael Jackson, Erik and Lyle Menendez and Elton John. Her two-hour talk with Monica Lewinsky in 1999, timed to the former White House intern’s memoir about her affair with President Bill Clinton, drew more than 70 million viewers.
Lewinsky tweeted that she had lunch with Walters a few years ago where “of course, she was charming, witty and some of her questions were still her signature interview style.”
A special favorite for Walters was Katharine Hepburn, although a 1981 exchange led to one of her most ridiculed questions: “What kind of a tree are you?” (Walters would later object that the question was perfectly reasonable within the context of their conversation).
Walters did pronounce herself guilty of being “dreadfully sentimental” at times and was famous for making her subjects cry, with Oprah Winfrey and Ringo Starr among the more famous shedders.
But her work also received high praise. She won a Peabody Award for her interview with Christopher Reeve shortly after the 1995 horseback-riding accident that left him paralyzed.
Walters’ first marriage to businessman Bob Katz was annulled after a year. Her 1963 marriage to theater owner Lee Guber, with whom she adopted a daughter, ended in divorce after 13 years. Her five-year marriage to producer Merv Adelson ended in divorce in 1990. Walters wrote a bestselling 2008 memoir “Audition,” which caught readers by surprise with her disclosure of a “long and rocky affair” in the 1970s with married U.S. Senator Edward Brooke.
Walters’ self-disclosure reached another benchmark in May 2010 when she made an announcement on “The View” that, days later, she would undergo heart surgery. She would feature her successful surgery — and those of other notables, including Clinton and David Letterman — in a primetime special.
Walters is survived by her daughter, Jacqueline Danforth.
“I hope that I will be remembered as a good and courageous journalist. I hope that some of my interviews, not created history, but were witness to history, although I know that title has been used," Walters told the AP upon her retirement from “The View.” "I think that when I look at what I have done, I have a great sense of accomplishment. I don’t want to sound proud and haughty, but I think I’ve had just a wonderful career and I’m so thrilled that I have.”
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Moore, a longtime Associated Press television writer who retired in 2017, was the principal writer of this obituary. Associated Press journalists Stefanie Dazio and Alicia Rancilio contributed to this report.
Western NY death toll rises to 28 from cold, storm chaos
Buffalo residents hovered around space heaters, hunted for cars buried in snow drifts and looked for more victims Monday, after 28 people died in one of the worst weather-related disasters ever to hit western New York.
The rest of the United States also was reeling from the ferocious winter storm, with at least another two dozen deaths reported in other parts of the country.
Up to 9 more inches of snow (23 centimeters) could fall in some areas of western New York through Tuesday, the National Weather Service said.
“This is not the end yet,” said Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz, calling the blizzard “the worst storm probably in our lifetime,” even for an area accustomed to punishing snow.
Some people, he noted, were stranded in their cars for more than two days.
President Joe Biden said his prayers were with the victims’ families, and offered federal assistance Monday to the hard-hit state.
Those who lost their lives around Buffalo were found in cars, homes and snowbanks. Some died while shoveling snow, others when emergency crews could not respond in time to medical crises.
Melissa Carrick, a doula, said the blizzard forced her to coach a pregnant client through childbirth by telephone. An ambulance crew transported the woman to a hospital about 45 minutes south of Buffalo because none of the closer hospitals were reachable.
“In any other normal Buffalo storm? I would just go because that’s what you do – just drive through the snow,” she said. “But you knew this was different.”
Scientists say the climate change crisis may have contributed to the intensity of the storm. That’s because the atmosphere can carry more water vapor, which acts as fuel, said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Read more: 48 deaths reported in US from massive storm
Victor Gensini, a meteorology professor at Northern Illinois University, likened a single weather event to an “at-bat” — and the climate as your “batting average.”
“It’s hard to say,” Serreze said. “But are the dice a little bit loaded now? Absolutely.”
The blizzard roared across western New York Friday and Saturday. With many grocery stores in the Buffalo area closed and driving bans in place, some people pleaded on social media for donations of food and diapers.
“It was like looking at a white wall for 14 to 18 hours straight,” Poloncarz, the county official, said.
Relief is coming later this week, as forecasts call for temperatures to slowly rise, said Ashton Robinson Cook, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
Cook said the bomb cyclone — when atmospheric pressure drops very quickly in a strong storm — has weakened. It developed near the Great Lakes, stirring up blizzard conditions including heavy winds and snow.
Some 3,410 domestic and international flights were canceled Monday as of about 3 p.m. EDT, according to the tracking site FlightAware. The site said Southwest Airlines had 2,497 cancellations — about 60% of its scheduled flights and about 10 times as many as any other major U.S. carrier.
Southwest said the weather was improving, which would “stabilize and improve our situation.”
Based on FlightAware data, airports all across the U.S. were suffering from cancellations and delays, including Denver, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Seattle, Baltimore and Chicago.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul toured the aftermath in Buffalo — her hometown — on Monday, calling the blizzard “one for the ages.” Almost every fire truck in the city became stranded Saturday, she said.
Hochul noted the storm came a little over a month after the region was inundated with another “historic” snowfall. Between the two storms, snowfall totals are not far off from the 95.4 inches (242 centimeters) the area normally sees in an entire winter season.
Read more: Millions in US hunker down from frigid, deadly monster storm
The National Weather Service said the snow total at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport stood at 49.2 inches (1.25 meters) at 10 a.m. Monday. Officials say the airport will be shut through Wednesday morning.
Shahida Muhammad told WKBW that an outage knocked out power to her 1-year-old son’s ventilator. She and the child’s father manually administered breaths from Friday until Sunday when rescuers saw her desperate social media posts and came to their aid. She said her son was doing well despite the ordeal and described him as “a fighter.”
In a makeshift hut in her living room, Trisha LoGrasso was still huddled around a space heater Monday with three of her children and her eldest daughter’s boyfriend. The temperature inside her Buffalo home was 42 degrees (5.5 C). She was without heat because of a gas leak, and burst pipes left her with no running water.
“I’ve lived here my whole life, and this is the worst storm I’ve ever seen,” the 48-year-old said.
Melissa Osmon and her husband James were without power for more than 72 hours in the Buffalo suburb of Williamsville, and would retreat to their car to stay warm for hours at a time.
“We even watched the Buffalo Bills game on our phone,” Osmon said, speaking by phone from her GMC Acadia.
“You can see your breath inside the house,” she said. “That’s how cold it is.”
The storm knocked out power in communities from Maine to Seattle.
Storm-related deaths were reported practically nationwide, including at least eight killed in crashes in Missouri, Kansas and Kentucky. A woman fell through Wisconsin river ice, and there was a fatal fire at a Kansas homeless persons camp.
In Jackson, Mississippi, crews struggled Monday to get water through the capital city’s beleaguered water system, authorities said. Many areas had no water or low water pressure. On Christmas Day, residents were told to boil their drinking water due to water lines bursting in the frigid temperatures.
“The issue has to be significant leaks in the system that we have yet to identify,” the city said in a statement Monday.