Local officials insist they had prepared but the weather was extraordinary even for a region prone to powerful winter storms.

For 14 hours in Buffalo, emergency services technician Phaleisha Balesteri sat inside her snow-covered ambulance without food or water, helplessly listening to her dispatchers answer calls about people freezing, mothers and babies stranded in cars, oxygen tanks running out, and other first responders trapped trying to get to them. In front of her, four cars […]

More than 30 people are reported to have died in the region, officials say.