Storm dumps snow, cuts power
‘Near-whiteout conditions’ expected to hit US East Coast
The second major storm in less than a week moved up the East Coast of the United States on Thursday, dumping heavy snow and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses.
Some places saw more than 60 centimeters of snow by late on Wednesday, with between 20 and 30 cm of wet, heavy snow, some of it accompanied by thunder and lightning, forecast for New York City and surrounding New Jersey and Connecticut suburbs through Thursday morning.
At least 60 million people are in the storm’s path. Airlines canceled more than 3,000 flights for Wednesday and Thursday, according to FlightAware, an aviation software and data services company.
Amtrak suspended services between New York and Boston until at least 10 am on Thursday. New York Metro-North commuter railroad suspended service on lines connecting the city to its northern suburbs and Connecticut because of downed trees. It was not immediately known when service would be restored.
Wind gusts could create “near-whiteout conditions” for commuters, the National Weather Service said.
Some workers were stranded with both buses and trains canceled.
“I don’t know how to go home right now. I am trying to find out the way to go home,” said Huseyin Aktug, a Bloomingdale’s employee left stranded at Penn Station.
“It’s kind of awful,” said New York University student Alessa Raiford, who put two layers of clothing on a pug named Jengo before taking him for a walk in slushy, sloppy Manhattan, where rain gave way to wet snow in the afternoon.
“I’d rather that it be full-on snowing than rain and slush. It just makes it difficult.”
The storm was not predicted to be as severe as the nor’easter that toppled trees, inundated coastal communities and caused more than 2 million power outages from Virginia to Maine last week.
In Manhattan, snow mixed with rain started falling on Wednesday morning and turned to all-snow by late afternoon with strong winds. Moderate temperatures kept the snow from accumulating, but the forecast was for several inches of snow as temperatures dipped to freezing and below.
The rain and melting snow turned Times Square and surrounding streets into puddles and slush.
Headache
It still proved to be a headache for the tens of thousands of customers still in the dark from the earlier storm which claimed eight lives, and for the crews trying to restore power to them.
In New Jersey, the state’s major utilities reported more than 300,000 customers without power by late Wednesday, with some left over from last week. Utilities across the Northeast also reported tens of thousands of homes and businesses without electricity.
The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning through Thursday for most of New England as the storm continued to make its way through. AP and Reuters contributed to this story.