US winter storm: Life on the road as deep-freeze conditions hit New York State
Careering, squealing and with arms windmilling, a little girl in Minnie Mouse pyjamas flew past the lobby elevator on bright white roller skates with pink glittery wheels.
“Merry Christmas,” her mum called out, smiling through slightly gritted teeth.
This is Watertown, New York. The town Christmas (almost) forgot.
We found ourselves here after a seven-hour drive from Washington DC to friends in Canada ended at the very final hurdle, just tantalising minutes from the border.
Storm Elliott caught us up.
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Cars abandoned after US snow storm
We’d checked the radar and our route had been clear but as we now well know – as Brits living here for the past seven years – US weather rarely behaves.
We limped past abandoned trucks, downed power lines and even pulled-over police cars in near-zero visibility, to the nearest town, where we found one of those ubiquitous US interstate-side chain hotels. There was room at the inn. ‘Room’… One.
We took it. It was us, the children and the dogs.
In the lobby were dozens of power line workers – some had driven from Texas (a 30-hour trip) – who had been called to help restore electricity to the thousands without any.
One told me he’d been up a pole and because it was so brittle due to the -34C temperatures, it had simply snapped under his weight. A drift caught his fall, but he had been ordered to rest inside for the remainder of the day.
The hotel had some food, and servers brought it out to us with the good grace to wear Santa hats.
They even attempted a ‘holiday cocktail’ with what was left in the bar, with a cherry on a cocktail stick and “plenty of ice”.
The blizzard outside battered the windows. Our dogs tentatively walked out to pee but had to be carried back in, just seconds later, their feet burned by the ice.
Snow blankets the luggage cart at the hotel
As we sat around the fire by the reception desk, people shared their stories of where they’d come from and where they were going. A young man heading to his girlfriend’s home showed me a small square box in his backpack.
It would be a New Year’s Eve proposal instead, he said.
The hotel chef had been on duty for four days and nights straight. They hadn’t wanted him to leave in case they couldn’t get anyone else in to replace him. The upside? There wasn’t a lot of food left, so not much to cook, he said.
We hunkered down overnight and, unlike many others in this once-in-a-generation storm, we were safe and warm.
Christmas morning has now arrived. My teens are still asleep and I’m thankful they are not the age of the wee one with her roller skates because although they are sad, they are resigned and understand.
“Did Santa bring you those fabulous skates?” I asked the little girl as she rolled by laughing.
“Yes!,” she said. “He knew he had to deliver them here instead of Auntie Pat’s”.
Her mum and I exchanged a look that only mums of children at Christmas would understand.
Donald Trump has said he is considering “taking away” the US citizenship of actress and comedian Rosie O’Donnell, despite a Supreme Court ruling that expressly prohibits a government from doing so.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, the US president said: “Because of the fact that Rosie O’Donnell is not in the best interests of our Great Country, I am giving serious consideration to taking away her Citizenship.”
He also labelled O’Donnell, who has moved to Ireland, as a “threat to humanity” and said she should “remain in the wonderful country of Ireland, if they want her”.
O’Donnell responded on Instagram by posting a photograph of Mr Trump with Jeffrey Epstein.
“You are everything that is wrong with America and I’m everything you hate about what’s still right with it,” she wrote in the caption.
“I’m not yours to silence. I never was.”
Rosie O’Donnell moved to Ireland after Donald Trump secured a second term. Pic: AP
O’Donnell moved to Ireland with her 12-year-old son in January after Mr Trump had secured a second term.
She has said she’s in the process of obtaining Irish citizenship based on family lineage and that she would only return to the US “when it is safe for all citizens to have equal rights there in America”.
O’Donnell and the US president have criticised each other publicly for years, in an often-bitter back-and-forth that predates Mr Trump’s move into politics.
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This is just the latest threat by the president to revoke the citizenship of someone he has disagreed with, most recently his former ally Elon Musk.
But the two situations are different as while Musk was born in South Africa, O’Donnell was born in the US and has a constitutional right to American citizenship.
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Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court ruled in a 1967 case that the fourteenth amendment of the constitution prevents the government from taking away citizenship.
“The president has no authority to take away the citizenship of a native-born US citizen,” he added.
“In short, we are nation founded on the principle that the people choose the government; the government cannot choose the people.”
A farmer who fell from a greenhouse roof during an anti-immigrant raid at a licensed cannabis facility in California this week has died of his injuries.
Jaime Alanis, 57, is the first person to die as a result of Donald Trump’s Immigration Compliance and Enforcement (ICE) raids.
His niece, Yesenia Duran, posted on the fundraising site GoFundMe to say her uncle was his family’s only provider and he had been sending his earnings back to his wife and daughter in Mexico.
The United Food Workers said Mr Alanis had worked on the farm for 10 years.
“These violent and cruel federal actions terrorise American communities, disrupt the American food supply chain, threaten lives and separate families,” the union said in a recent statement on X.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it executed criminal search warrants at Glass House Farms facilities on Thursday.
Mr Alanis called family to say he was hiding and possibly fleeing agents before he fell around 30ft (9m) from the roof and broke his neck, according to information from family, hospital and government sources.
Agents arrested 200 people suspected of being in the country illegally and identified at least 10 immigrant children on the sites, the DHS said in a statement.
Mr Alanis was not among them, the agency said.
“This man was not in and has not been in CBP (Customs and Border Protection) or ICE custody,” DHS assistant secretary for public affairs Tricia McLaughlin said.
“Although he was not being pursued by law enforcement, this individual climbed up to the roof of a greenhouse and fell 30ft. CBP immediately called a medivac to the scene to get him care as quickly as possible.”
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Four US citizens were arrested during the incident for allegedly “assaulting or resisting officers”, the DHS said, and authorities were offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of a person suspected of firing a gun at federal agents.
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In a statement, Glass House, a licensed Cannabis grower, said immigration agents had valid warrants. It said workers were detained and it is helping provide them with legal representation.
“Glass House has never knowingly violated applicable hiring practices and does not and has never employed minors,” it added.
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