Sun and shovels

U.S. East Coast digs out from blizzard

U.S. East Coast residents clobbered by the weekend blizzard trudged into the workweek Monday amid slippery roads, spotty transit service and mounds of snow that buried cars and blocked sidewalks after some cities got an entire winter’s snow in two days.

For others, the weekend extended into Monday because of closed schools and government offices. The storm dropped snow from the Gulf Coast to New England, with near-record snowfalls tallied from Washington, D.C. to New York City. At least 31 people have died as a result of the storm; the deaths occurred in car accidents, from carbon monoxide poisoning, and from heart attacks while shovelling snow.

In Brooklyn, only one teacher at the Bedford-Stuyvesant New Beginnings Charter School called out, despite more than two feet (60 centimetres) of snow in New York City.

“A lot of teachers are taking the train instead of driving,” said Wanda Morales, director of operations at the school, as she stood outside while maintenance workers spread salt and parents dropped off their children.

Amtrak operated a reduced number of trains on all its routes, serving many people who couldn’t get around otherwise, spokesman Marc Magliari said. Bus and rail service was expected to be limited around the region into Monday.

Flying remained particularly messy after nearly 12,000 weekend flights and hundreds more on Monday were cancelled.

Airports resumed limited service in New York City, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, which said it got an entire winter’s snow in two days. In the Washington area, Reagan National Airport tweeted that it saw its first flights Monday, and Dulles International Airport expected to resume flights late in the day.

AP PHOTO Tess Jorgensson, 3, helps her father dig their car out of snow in Alexandria, Va., Sunday. Millions of Americans were digging themselves out after a mammoth blizzard with hurricane-force winds and record-setting snowfall brought much of the East Coast...