The death toll from a series of devastating storms that have hit the U.S. has risen to 13 as the Midwest and South cleanup and the West Coast attempts to dig out from the snow.
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear announced Saturday that five people were killed across multiple counties on March 4 from the severe weather including high winds. One additional person died indirectly from the winter weather.
The storms have left more than 300,000 people across Kentucky and Michigan in the darkness as of Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us.
In Southern California, residents and visitors resorted to writing out ‘help us’ in the snow as they have been trapped for more than a week by feet of snow.
‘It feels helpless right, and it’s kind of a frustrating type of helpless,’ said one man who has been isolated in the San Bernardino mountains for nearly two weeks.
Last week, winds in Kentucky reached up to 75 miles per hour in Kentucky, causing major widespread destruction. According to Beshear, the majority of the damage was to trees and power lines.
As of Sunday, more than 216,000 residents are still without power and Beshear warned Saturday it could take days to restore power. Similarly, Michigan still has nearly 110,00 without power as of Sunday.
‘Very significant widespread damage and is going to take days to get power back up in some places,’ Gov. Beshear said Saturday at a press conference.
The governor described the powerful winds by explaining that some residents in Franklin County – located between Lexington and Louisville – could ‘feel the walls moving.’
Beshear declared a state of emergency Friday over the weather.
Millions of Americans are still under weather advisories as high winds, snow, tornadoes, and thunderstorms continue to threaten states. The storms have wreaked havoc on states including Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and the Carolinas.
Seven tornadoes have been reported across Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas since Thursday. Arkansas has also seen more than half a foot of rain and Oklahoma and Ohio were under flooding alerts Friday.
Winds in Texas ripped the roof off a grocery store north of Dallas while 80-mile-per-hour winds were recorded near Fort Worth.
Residents at an apartment complex nearby also reported their roof being ripped off by the winds.
‘The whole building started shaking…The whole ceiling is gone,’ one neighbor told KDFW-TV. ‘It got really crazy.’
In Southern California, two teen boys who were hiking the San Bernardino mountains were forced to huddle for days after they were stranded in the snow.
‘They’ve told us, ‘We were already convinced we were going to die’,’ Cesar Ramirez, the father of one of the two boys, told KTLA.
The area where the boys were rescued from has been pummeled by snow, some places receiving upwards of 50 inches in the last week.
California officials estimate that as much as 10 feet have fallen during the storms. Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared states of emergency in 13 counties.
One of the 13 counties includes San Bernardino where some residents have been stranded for nearly two weeks.
The snowfall has closed off access to some roads entirely and shut off the power.
San Diego resident Kirk Taylor told ABC 10 he has been at his family cabin in Running Springs since February 20 with his wife and their two children.
Taylor said his family is prepared with gas and food but others are not so lucky.
‘They have no gas, no gas for hot water. They’re kind of stuck,’ he said.
Dawn Rowe, chair of the county board of supervisors, said the county has received hundreds of emergency calls in the past week, many from people who are looking for baby formula or medicine.
