New storm moving in
Utility workers scramble to restore power to thousands still in the dark
Utility workers took advantage of milder temperatures and sunshine Tuesday in their scramble to restore power to thousands of customers around the Northeast, as another snowy, blowy nor’easter threatened a new round of outages.
The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning that stretched from eastern Pennsylvania to most of New England, from late Tuesday night into Thursday morning.
Heavy, wet snow and gusting winds could take down trees and snap power lines already weakened from last week’s storm, adding to stress for customers who’ve gone days without power.
The outages turned to outrage for a New Jersey man whose home had been without electricity since Friday, who threatened to kidnap a utility company employee and blow up a substation.
Robert Winter, 63, was charged with making terroristic threats, according to police in Vernon.
More than a foot of snow is forecast for some interior areas, the weather service said. Pennsylvania’s Poconos Mountains and parts of western Massachusetts could see up to 18 inches.
Damaging winds are in the forecast with gusts of up to 60 mph at Cape Cod, 45 mph at the Jersey shore and 30 mph around suburban Philadelphia.
Depending on the storm’s track, communities along the Interstate 95 corridor could see either lots of rain, heavy snow, or a mix of each.
Transportation departments in Philadelphia and Boston loaded up salt trucks and pretreated roads Tuesday afternoon, and some airlines already were waiving ticket change fees for airports in the storm’s projected path, such as Newark, Philadelphia, Boston and New York’s JFK.
Amtrak said it was cancelling some train service today, and regional rail trains in Philadelphia will operate on a weekend schedule today.