Erie, Pennsylvania, got hammered with 5 feet of snow in 2 days

Heavy snowfall.
(Image credit: iStock)

A massive Christmas snowfall buried Erie, Pennsylvania, the state's fourth largest city, in a record five feet of snow, with up to three inches an hour blanketing the area, the National Weather Service reported Tuesday. A total of at least 60 inches fell over two days, starting Christmas Eve, with most of it coming between Christmas morning and Tuesday.

The snowfall broke local and state records and disrupted travel around the Great Lakes and left ambulances unable to reach some patients. "They don't have vehicles high enough, so we are currently working with the national guard to be able to deploy Humvee ambulances to assist them," said Richard Flinn, the secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Emergency Management.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.