Western New York digs out of snow as winter storm death toll rises

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• Judy Woodruff:

  The great blizzard of 2022 is passing into the history books, but its legacy lingers on the ground and in the air.

  Southwest Airlines scrubbed another 2,500 flights today, and the number of deaths nationwide from snow and freezing temperatures topped 60, with more than half of those in Western New York state.

  John Yang begins our coverage.

• John Yang:

  Across Buffalo, mounds of plowed snow are rising. And, after days of frigid cold, so are temperatures and the potential for more problems.

  Officials warn that the thaw could lead to the discovery of more dead, as snowbound homes become accessible. So they have sent National Guard troops door to door. And city and county officials have begun to call each other out.

• Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz:

• Mark Poloncarz, Erie County, New York, Executive:

  The mayor is not going to be happy to hear about it, but storm after storm after storm after storm, the city, unfortunately, is the last one to be opened. And that shouldn't be the case. It's embarrassing, to tell the truth.

• John Yang:

  Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown:

  Byron Brown, Mayor of Buffalo, New York: And as tough and as strong as the county executive could be in a news briefing, he did not say any of this to me on the phone or face to face.

• John Yang:

  Across the country, stranded air travelers spent another long, frustrating day, especially on Southwest Airlines.

• Paul Shelby, Southwest Passenger:

  I think the worst part was, when they canceled our flight, they didn't give us our luggage, so these clothes have been on us for four days.

• John Yang:

  The airline again canceled more than 60 percent of its flights, far more than any other carrier. Last night, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told Judy Woodruff that the airline can't blame all its problems on the storm.

  Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Secretary of Transportation: Right now, I would say meltdown is the only word I can use to describe what is happening across Southwest Airlines' operations.

• John Yang:

  Today, the head of the Southwest pilots union called for major changes.

• Capt. Casey Murray, President, Southwest Airlines Pilots Association:

  They're using processes and I.T. from the 1990s, when we were an airline less than a quarter of the size.

• Bob Jordan, CEO, Southwest Airlines:

  I'm truly sorry.

• John Yang:

  In a video statement, Southwest CEO Bob Jordan acknowledged his company's failings.

• Bob Jordan:

  The tools we use to recover from disruption serve us well 99 percent of the time, but, clearly, we need to double down on our already existing plans to upgrade systems for these extreme circumstances.

• John Yang:

  In Buffalo, officials say long days of recovery and mourning lie ahead. The body of 26-year-old Congolese refugee Abdul Sharifu was found in a snowdrift. He'd been dubbed 9/11 for his willingness to help those in need.

• Mark Poloncarz:

  Abdul Sharifu went out to get food and provisions for his pregnant wife was about to give birth, and didn't make it back home.

• John Yang:

  And even as the thaw sets in, thousands of people still need help getting food, medicine and transportation.

  Buffalo's death toll from this storm is already the city's highest ever from a weather event, surpassing the Blizzard of 1977.

  Don Paul is a long time Buffalo meteorologist, a respected voice in the city, who's covered the city's weather for nearly four decades.

  Don Paul, we think of Buffalo as a city that can handle snow like this, handle snowstorms like this. Yet we have this staggering death toll. And I think people all across the country are asking one question: How could this happen in a city like Buffalo?

• Don Paul, Buffalo Meteorologist:

  Well, I don't think anyone has the answer right now, because the Blizzard of '77, which was a ground blizzard — that was almost entirely windblown snow — was not well-forecast.

  It wasn't a total surprise, but people were unprepared. This storm had days of advanced warning, not just from someone like me, but certainly from the National Weather Service. And we assumed fewer people would try to venture out into it.

  And Buffalo is known for being able to handle snow. But there's a certain mythology there, John. The city has fewer plows per capita than a city that gets less snow, like where I grew up in the New York area. And the New York Sanitation Department, per capita, has far more plows.

  And then you have so many abandoned cars where these plows here, as in other cities, simply cannot get down the street. But, apparently, one of the biggest problems has been so many people wandered out and got into their cars, as well as pedestrians, who faced the worst possible result in just the most brutal conditions I have personally experienced in my rather long life.

  I have never seen anything quite like it. And as bad as it was here at my house, it was worse in Buffalo.

• John Yang:

  We have seen extreme weather events get more extreme in recent years.

  Do you see any connection with climate change in this storm?

• Don Paul:

  Probably. It's not quite conclusive.

  But there's growing evidence that the Arctic, which is warming two to three times faster than the rest of the globe, by warming up has caused the polar jet stream episodically to weaken. A strong polar vortex keeps most of the polar air bottled up over the polar region.

  But when that polar jet weakens, it can allow episodic stretching of the polar vortex far to the south, generally east of the Rockies. And this can happen in the midst of an otherwise milder-than-average winter. And it sounds counterintuitive, especially to nonscientist denialists, but we can see some of the most extreme winter weather events for short periods.

  And, as you may have heard by now, we're going to — most of the eastern two-thirds of the country are going to go back to well-above-average temperatures over the next three or four days into next week. And a lot of the snow will melt, but it's not going to erase the tragedy.

• John Yang:

  Given that — I mean, so this has been described as a once-in-a-generation storm.

  But, given what you just said, is it — couldn't we be seeing these more frequently?

• Don Paul:

  We could.

  There's some disagreement. There's not total agreement in the scientific community between physicists and climate scientists and meteorologists. But some researchers, such as Dr. Judah Cohen in the Boston area, has done some really in-depth research. And he believes these episodes not only will be happening more often, but they already have been happening more often than prior to the accelerated warming.

  So we're seeing these winter events. But we have also seen some tropical events that appear to be related to the change in the jet stream. And that appears to be, but, again, not conclusively, tied to arctic warming.

  In my estimation, we are seeing these episodes more often. But I'm not a researcher, so I rely on — I stand on their shoulders when I say that.

• John Yang:

  You told our producer Mike Fritz earlier today that you were concerned about what this storm mean for Buffalo moving forward. What did you mean by that?

• Don Paul:

  I'm afraid that this disaster, besides the horrific human toll, is going to take a toll on Buffalo's image and a place for potential industries to come here and locate, when, in fact, Buffalo does not suffer risk of megadroughts, wildfires, massive flooding, and the other events that are definitely tied to a warming climate.

  We have more refuge in our — and, of course, our water supply is virtually inexhaustible from Lake Erie and the other Great Lakes. We are a climate impact refuge. But this setback, in addition to the tragedy, I'm afraid it's going to hurt Buffalo's economic well-being. It's not going to be quickly forgotten.

• John Yang:

  Buffalo meteorologist Don Paul, thank you very much.

  Our thoughts are with everybody up there in the Buffalo region.

• Don Paul:

  Thank you, John.

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