At least 47 people have died in the New York city of Buffalo since the declaration, almost a month ago, of a state of emergency due to an unprecedented winter storm that has left temperatures of nearly -40ºC.
The cold snap is part of the storm system that devastated, particularly between December 21 and 26, a large part of the country, and has so far left a total of approximately 104 people dead in some twenty U.S. states and British Columbia.
The head of Erie County, Mark Poloncarz, has indicated after providing the balance through his Twitter account that the death toll could increase in the coming hours pending receipt of toxicology reports of three other fatalities.
The storm, considered as «the most devastating storm in the history of the city», as described by the governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, paralyzed practically all the services and infrastructures of the city in the middle of the Christmas vacation season, which ended up accentuating the difficulty of the Emergency services to attend some of the victims.
In the face of protests from part of the population and from some emergency officials, such as the president of the city’s Firefighters’ Union 32, Vinny Ventresca, who even accused the Fire Commissioner of being on vacation in the middle of the crisis, Poloncarz has taken the blame for some delay in the response to the storm.
«I don’t know if moving up the traffic ban would have made a difference but it was my decision and I take full responsibility. As JFK said, ‘Victory has many fathers but defeat is an orphan,'» he has lamented on his Twitter account.
Other officials, such as Fire Commissioner William Renaldo, assured that the city was fully prepared to deal with the emergency.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
