100 million people affected by East Coast’s deep freeze

NEW YORK (AP) — About 100 million people faced a new challenge after the whopping East Coast snowstorm: a gusty deep freeze, topped Saturday by a wind chill close to minus 100 on New Hampshire’s Mt. Washington that vied for world’s coldest place.

Jaw-clenching temperatures to start the weekend throughout the Northeast hit Burlington, Vermont, at minus one and a wind chill of minus 30. Both Philadelphia and New York were shivering at eight degrees.

And in Hartford, Connecticut, a brutal cold of 10 degrees yielded a wind chill of minus 20.

On Saturday, winds of more than 90 mph swirled Mt. Washington, the Northeast’s highest peak, at a temperature of minus 37 degrees and a wind chill of minus 93. It tied for second place with Armstrong, Ontario as the coldest spot in the world.

Boston, at a relatively balmy 11 degrees, was wrangling with a different kind of challenge: a short- age of plumbers as the weather wreaked havoc on pipes that froze and cracked, Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh reported.

A three-foot tidal surge brought on by the nor’easter along the Massachusetts coast was the highest recorded in nearly a century. Residents of Boston and its suburbs were cleaning up Saturday after the tide that came in Thursday, flooding streets and forcing some residents to be evacuate as the water started to freeze.

In New Jersey, many people stayed home instead of dealing with singledigit temperatures. Others were cleaning up from the storm that dropped more than a foot of snow in some spots earlier in the week.

“My car felt like an icebox this morning, even though I had the heat on full blast,” Julie Williams said as she sipped coffee inside a Jackson Township convenience store. She was headed to work at a local supermarket, and was expecting it to be packed.