C T Online Desk: Thousands more flights were canceled across the United States on Wednesday, with no end in sight to days of travel misery as the country digs out from a deadly superstorm.
Officials in Erie county in western New York — the area of the country hardest hit by the massive winter storm — lifted their death toll to 37, taking the national total to at least 59.
Around-the-clock work to restore electricity continued in the county’s main city of Buffalo, with the number of outages down to 128 residents, Mayor Byron Brown told CNN later in the day.
Another kind of crisis was playing out at US airports around the country, as Southwest Airlines was forced to cancel thousands more flights to try to recover from a spiraling logistics breakdown.
The airline’s woes stranded thousands of customers as well as pilots and flight attendants.
Video on social media showed rows and rows of stranded bags at Southwest in claim areas at airports in Nashville, Orlando and other cities.
“I didn’t try to come earlier this week, it seems to have been such a mess,” said Donald Sneyder, who found himself back at the Baltimore airport three days after his flight to Indianapolis was canceled.
“But I hope to get my luggage back today.”
As she waited in a line of 50, another passenger in Baltimore told AFP she hoped to locate the child seat for her two-month-old.
– Wellness checks –
The storm, which descended on the United States just before the busy Christmas holiday weekend, led to unusually cold weather in much of the country, including southern states like Texas and Florida.
