NBC News: Snowstorm in the U.S. killed at least 57 people

An “unprecedented” snowstorm in the United States killed at least 57 people, including 27 in Erie County, New York State, officials said.

The death toll from the giant storm is expected to rise as snow continues to blanket Erie County, making roads in many areas, including much of Buffalo, impassable, County Executive Mark Poloncarz said at a news conference.

“We’re already seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but we’re not there yet,” he said.

Snow in Erie County is expected to continue through Tuesday afternoon. Temperatures have dropped sharply across the country, and huge snow drifts have trapped people in their homes and hampered traffic.

As of Monday morning, the storm, which swept from the Great Lakes near Canada to the Rio Grande River near the Mexican border, had killed at least 57 people, NBC News estimated.

The deaths were reported in 12 states: Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

The Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office found that 27 of the deaths were directly related to the blizzard, Poloncarz said.

Many died because of heart problems while shoveling snow, he said. Others were found dead in their cars. At least one person in Niagara County died of carbon monoxide poisoning, Poloncarz said.

At least 18 deaths have been reported in Buffalo, Mayor Byron Brown said Monday.

Some of those cases are not included in Erie County’s official count, Poloncarz said, adding that county officials are working to confirm them.

A storm of this magnitude has never before been seen in the region, Poloncarz said.

“A storm like this comes once in a generation,” he said, noting that the county is just beginning to assess “the full severity of the impact.”

In Buffalo, blinding blizzards and freezing rain caused more than 20,000 customers to lose power at one point, Brown said.

“We know the storm is coming back,” said New York City Mayor Cathy Hocul, who said such storms occur “once in a century.”

By Monday morning, more than 1,200 flights had been canceled and at least 500 more had been delayed, leaving travelers stranded in airports across the country, according to the FlightAware website.

Hokul wrote on Twitter that she spoke with President Joe Biden, and he “promised prompt approval” of the request to declare a disaster emergency.

The White House issued a similar statement, noting that Biden offered “all the resources of the federal government to support New Yorkers as the state tries to deal with the aftermath of the historic winter storm.”