Winter snowfall buries western New York

A battering winter storm knocked out power to 1.7 million homes and businesses across the United States on Saturday, left millions more to worry about the prospect of further outages.

Across the country, officials have attributed more than a dozen deaths to exposure, icy car crashes and other effects of the storm, including two people who died in their homes outside Buffalo, New York, when emergency crews couldn’t reach them amid historic blizzard conditions.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Buffalo Niagara International Airport will be closed through Monday morning, some roads would be closed through Christmas Day and almost every fire truck in Buffalo was stranded in the snow.