‘This is chilly, chilly stuff’
First snow, now bitter cold disrupts life on U.S. east coast
BOSTON — Frigid temperatures moved across the U.S. east coast on Friday as the region attempted to clean up from a massive winter storm that brought more than a foot of snow, hurricane-force winds and coastal flooding a day earlier.
Forecasters predict strong winds and record-breaking cold air will sweep the region, from the mid-Atlantic to New England, and hang around through the weekend.
“This is chilly, chilly stuff,” said Brian Hurley, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland.
The storm began days ago in the Gulf of Mexico and first struck the Florida Panhandle.
By Thursday, it was wreaking havoc as blizzard warnings and states of emergency went into effect along the Eastern Seaboard.
Wind gusts hit more than 113 km/h in places and some areas saw as much as 46 centimetres of snow.
The storm caused school and business closings, airline and rail service cancellations or reductions and thousands of utilities outages, many of them restored quickly.
Some ferry services had to be shut down along the Canadian coast.
Flights resumed at airports along the east coast after hundreds were cancelled Thursday.
Flights in and out of Logan International Airport in Boston, Kennedy Airport in New York and Bradley Airport in Connecticut resumed Friday, and business was expected to pick up as the day progressed.
In New Jersey, gusty winds carried flames from a vacant building across the street to two other buildings Friday morning.
The flames also spread to two structures adjacent to the vacant building, damaging a total of five in Newark.
Two firefighters received minor injuries.
In the south, the winter weather forced portable toilets to be put in place outside Mississippi’s Capitol after pipes burst.
The cold caused iguanas to become sluggish and topple from trees in South Florida.
Residents of southeast Georgia were treated to a rare 15 centimetres of snow.
In New England, powerful winds brought coastal flooding that reached historic levels in some communities with icy water overflowing piers, streets and restaurants and stranding some people who had to be rescued.
The only place where blizzard conditions were reported during Thursday’s storm, however, was Block Island, Rhode Island.
At least seven people died in weatherrelated accidents.
Four people were killed in North Carolina and South Carolina after their vehicles ran off snow-covered roads, authorities said.
Another fatality was reported near Philadelphia when a car could not stop at the bottom of a steep, snow-covered hill and slammed into a commuter train. A passenger in the vehicle was killed. No one on the train was hurt.
In Virginia, a girl was struck by a pickup truck while sledding, and a 75-year-old man was hit by a snow plow while clearing business parking lots, authorities said. Both died at hospitals from their injuries, police said.
Sunday morning should bring the coldest temperatures from Portland, Maine, to Washington, D.C. “That’s when you’ll see records being challenged or broken,” Hurley said.
More seasonable weather is expected to return early next week.