At least 26 people have died as brutal Winter Storm Fern battered the US — including two teenagers killed in tragic sledding accidents and seven people on a private jet that flipped upside down in Maine.
The first reported death was a 16-year-old girl who died when she and another girl were being towed on a sled in Texas by a 16-year-old boy driving a Jeep. The sled slammed into a curb and then collided with a tree, according to police in Frisco, just outside of Dallas.
The two girls were rushed to local hospitals, where one died from her injuries, and the other remains in critical condition, cops said. The incident remains under investigation, and no arrests have been announced.
Snow falls inside the Borough Hall subway station in New York City. REUTERS
The girl’s death was the first publicly reported death in the historic snowstorm, which impacted more than 235 million Americans, according to the Dallas Morning News.
A 17-year-old boy was killed in Arkansas in another sledding accident when he hit a tree while being pulled by an ATV when he struck a tree, officials said.
Seven people have been confirmed dead after a private plane crashed and burst into flames just after taking off in Bangor, Maine, late Sunday, the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed Monday.
A crew member was the sole survivor and was hospitalized with serious injuries, the FAA said. The jet is registered to a Houston-based law firm, according to federal records.
Delta Airlines planes were grounded at JFK Airport during one of the largest snowstorms in New York in years. Edna Leshowitz/ZUMA / SplashNews.com
The Bombardier Challenger 600 “crashed under unknown circumstances on departure” before it “came to rest inverted and caught on fire,” according to preliminary Federal Aviation Administration findings.
Audio recordings captured someone saying “Let there be light” just before air traffic controllers reported having “a passenger aircraft upside down” roughly 45 seconds after it was cleared to take off.
Locally, six people were found dead in New York City, with the sixth, a 52-year-old man, found Sunday at 96th Street and 34th Avenue in Queens, according to police.
“It is still too early to say what the cause of death was for any” of them, New York City Mayor Mamdani had told reporters at a press conference Sunday, when the first five fatalities were revealed.
He stressed that “it seems at this moment that we do not think any of them were homeless,” without elaborating on exactly what happened.
Another fatality was reported in Floral Park on Long Island, where a former New York Police Department officer, 60-year-old Roger McGovern, died while shoveling out a church, News 12 reported.
In Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, three people died while removing snow, the county coroner said. The three were between 60 and 84 years old.
In Massachusetts, a 51-year-old woman was killed when she and her husband were struck by a snowplow in a Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority parking lot, according to NBC Boston.
The husband survived and is recovering in the hospital, authorities said. The plow driver remained at the scene and is cooperating with authorities.
“This is an unimaginable, horrific incident,” MBTA Transit Police Superintendent Richard Sullivan said.
A sheriff’s deputy and others try to help a stuck motorist on a snowy Fifth Street in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, on Sunday. Matt Stone/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Meanwhile in Kansas, Rebecca Rauber, a 28-year-old elementary school teacher, was found dead in the snow on Sunday — just 300 yards from where she was last seen on Friday night after leaving a bar.
Another person was found dead from hypothermia outside of an Austin, Texas gas station, officials said.
An additional three deaths tied to the massive storm were reported in Tennessee, and two in Louisiana, ABC News reported.
Winter Storm Fern impacted more than 235 million Americans with snow and bone-chilling temperatures. Getty Images
Outside of Chicago, a commuter train crashed into a snowplow Monday morning in Bartlett, Illinois, sending the driver to the hospital in critical condition.
By Monday morning, some 700,000 Americans were still without power as temperatures remained below freezing. Tennessee, Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana were hit the hardest, according to poweroutage.us.
The Nashville Electric Service, the hardest-hit utility in the country, announced it will “double its workforce by midday today, with nearly 300 lineworkers deployed across our service area.”