A women's basketball team were stranded on their bus for more than a day after a snowstorm considered to be one of the worst in living memory hit New York.
Four people have died after the freak storm dumped up to 60 inches of snow across the state, closing schools and leaving more than 150 drivers stranded in their cars.
A three-and-a-half hour journey home for the Niagara University women's basketball team turned into a 27-hour ordeal after their bus got stuck.
Tiffany Corselli, a member of the team, said they were eating granola bars and pretzels to keep going and have had to drink melted snow after running out of water.
She said: "In the beginning we was all joyful but as the hours started going we got tired, so right now we're hoping we'll be out of here shortly."
However, the team was eventually rescued by the police.
Thank you for rescuing us NY state police! #onestepclosertohome #NUWBBstrandedonbus pic.twitter.com/7Bn14dvJ43
— Corinne Jones (@NUCoachJones) November 19, 2014
New York governor Andrew Cuomo has declared a state of emergency and ordered travel bans in several regions across the state after it was slammed by up to five feet of snow.
Among the worst-hit areas was the city of Buffalo where stunned onlookers captured images of a massive wall of snow sweeping across the city's Lake Erie.
Erie Country officials said three of the victims died from apparent heart attacks while shovelling snow. The fourth person is reported to have been killed in a car accident.
The snowstorm forced the closure of a 132-mile stretch of the New York State Thruway, but dozens of motorists were still left stranded in their vehicles for hours on end.
State police on snowmobiles were deployed to deliver blankets and supplies to those still trapped as night fell and temperatures plummeted.
Mr Cuomo tweeted that he had activated 526 ploughs, 74 large loaders, 1,247 operators, 17 large snow blowers and four truck-mounted snow blowers, warning that the snow is "not expected to ease until at least Thursday evening".
The wall of snow phenomenon was created by what is known as the "lake effect".
That is when icy winds meet the warmer waters of a lake causing a snow cloud to explode out of the water vapour. It hit on a day when much of the US was enduring icy weather.
Temperatures on Tuesday fell to freezing or below in all 50 states.
