Road crews scrambled to clear highways for Monday’s commuters, and travellers stranded at airports still waited to get home as the United States Northeast dug out from a record-breaking storm that dumped 60cm or more of snow.
Hundreds of schools cancelled Monday classes from West Virginia to Massachusetts. Utility crews worked to restore power to thousands of homes and businesses blacked out when wind gusting to 80kph knocked down power lines.
The weekend storm blanketed the eastern seaboard and Appalachians from western North Carolina to Maine, dropping 68cm of snow in Central Park — the heaviest since record-keeping was started in 1869, the National Weather Service said. The old record was 67cm in December 1947.
Children were thrilled to dig out their sleds, little used until now in this unusually mild winter.
”We’re hoping for 365 days off from school,” said nine-year-old Reagan Manz, playing in Central Park with friends. ”We could go sledding the whole time and not get bored.”
Fairfield, Connecticut, got 76,7cm of snow and Rahway, New Jersey, had 68cm, according to unofficial observations reported to the weather service. Just west of Philadelphia, 53cm of snow was recorded in West Caln township, Pennsylvania; the average snowfall for an entire winter in Philadelphia is about 53cm. Wilbraham, Massachusetts, east of Springfield, reported 55,9cm and some areas of the state had 1m drifts.
As far south as the mountains of western North Carolina, Robbinsville got 50cm of snow and drifts up to 1,8m high closed the Cherohala Skyway, a scenic route through the area to the Tennessee line. Unlike most of the Northeast, light snow continued falling in the area on Monday.
Northern Virginia collected up to 38cm and the Massanutten ski resort in the Shenandoah Valley had 30cm, its biggest snowfall this year. ”It’s the best advertising we can’t purchase,” said Steven Showalter, general manager of the resort’s ski area.
All three major New York-area airports — Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark — had reopened with limited service by Monday morning after hundreds of flights were called off on Sunday. A Turkish Airlines flight skidded off a runway at Kennedy when it landed late on Sunday, but none of the 198 passengers was injured, said Steve Coleman, a spokesperson for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
Airlines also cancelled hundreds of flights on Sunday at major airports from Washington’s Reagan National to Boston’s Logan International.
The Northeast airport closures and grounded planes stranded travellers across the country. About 7 500 people were stuck at Florida’s Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International airport, spokesperson Steve Belleme said.
”Our car’s in Newark. We can’t even get close to there,” said Maria Martinez, whose flight from Miami International airport was cancelled. ”We can’t even get to Philadelphia or DC”
Some passengers also were stranded on the Long Island Rail Road east of New York City, where trains got stuck on snow-covered tracks, officials said. One train was marooned for five hours.
Limited service into Penn Station in Manhattan resumed on Monday morning, but some branches on Long Island, New York, were still out of service.
”Usually the trains never stop. It’s never been like this,” said Rebecca Karpus, who was waiting to return home on Monday morning on the Long Island Rail Road after being marooned at Penn Station since Sunday evening. ”It’s really paralysed us.”
Amtrak said it still had numerous storm-related schedule changes on Monday morning.
Most highways were in good shape for the Monday-morning commute, but many city streets and sidewalks were still packed with snow.
The storm also knocked out power across parts of the Northeast, most severely in Maryland, where more than 150 000 customers were blacked out and utilities said about 44 000 still had no power on Monday. — Sapa-AP
Associated Press writers Desmond Butler in New York, Ben Nuckols in Baltimore, Donna Tommelleo in Hartford, Connecticut, Matthew Verrinder in Newark, New Jersey, Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia and Jessica Gresko in Miami contributed to this report