One of the fiercest blizzards
Blizzard leaves 27 dead; region tries to clean up
to strike the United States in decades leaves at least 27 people dead.
NEW YORK — One of the fiercest blizzards to strike the eastern U.S. in decades moved offshore Sunday, leaving a trail of record snowfalls in major cities, heavy flooding up and down the coast and at least 27 people dead.
As sunshine replaced the whiteout conditions of the day before, people in New York, Washington and other cities ventured out in wonder to view a landscape transformed. Residents spent hours digging out cars encased in igloos of snow. Some resorted to using cones, chairs and even tables to reserve their chiseled out parking spaces.
Others pulled out their sleds and cross-country skis and took to the still-quiet streets and to parks that were covered in knee-high drifts.
Mayors and governors spent the day trying to figure out how to remove heavy blankets of snow so that they could let businesses reopen, send children back to school and prevent more loss of life and property.
“With this much snow on the ground, it’s going to be there in some form or another for two or three weeks, if not more,” said meteorologist Patrick Burke at the National Weather Service’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Md.
By Sunday afternoon, the storm had moved east of Cape Cod, Mass., and into the Atlantic.
In New York City, where the 26.8 inches of snow in Central Park fell one-tenth of an inch short of a record, Gov. Andrew Cuomo lifted a rare regionwide travel ban, allowing traffic to flow once again.
New York’s airports also slowly returned to life, though hundreds of flights remained canceled there, among thousands grounded throughout the country this weekend.
Storm-weary New Yorkers packed subway stations, eager to move freely through the city. Even with major streets mostly passable, cars were a rarity, as many remained sandwiched between heavy layers of fresh snow and won’t budge until a thaw.
Streets remained clogged in the city’s largest borough, Queens. Mayor Bill de Blasio promised to focus snow removal efforts on the borough, and the city announced it would hire temporary snow shovelers.
“This was one of the worst storms to ever hit New York City, and we need all hands on deck to dig us out,” de Blasio said.
Fire hydrants and bus stops were a priority. Firefighters responding to a midtown Manhattan blaze earlier in the day had to dig hydrants clear from the snow, costing what the department said was seconds of valuable response time.
For many New Yorkers, the day was an opportunity to take advantage of the storm for fun or profit.
“I would have been out earlier, but I was hung over,” said Jim Keller as he skied through Brooklyn Bridge Park with a group of buddies calling themselves the Brooklyn Ski Patrol.
In Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, teenagers Tyrone Graham and John Ruiz tried to earn money by shoveling out cars. Graham was sweating, having already dug out three. “We’ve almost made $100,” Ruiz said.
Professional sporting events and many other activities throughout the East Coast were canceled. Many businesses and museums remained closed.
The storm smashed snowfall records in Baltimore (29.2 inches at the airport) and Allentown, Pa. (31.9 inches). Washington Dulles International Airport recorded its secondhighest total (29.3 inches), while Philadelphia came in with its sixth-highest (22.4 inches).
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser officially canceled school for Monday. Buses and subways in the nation’s capital, which were brought to a standstill over the weekend, will maintain a limited schedule Monday. And, to clear streets, the city borrowed 400 plows, Bobcats and dump trucks, tripling the size of its snowclearing fleet, Bowser said during a news conference.
In northwest Washington, residents spent the morning shoveling out cars, building makeshift sled hills and chatting about which shows they binge-watched and what they ate during the hours they spent cooped up over the weekend. Few tried to make it through the icy streets in their cars.
The House of Representatives announced that it would cancel votes for the coming week while the Senate plans to return late Wednesday, allowing members to stay home.
The capital was also struggling to recruit more volunteers to help elderly and disabled residents shovel their sidewalks. Shovel crews wandering the neighborhoods charged as much as $250 to clear sidewalks and parked cars.
As the day wore on, more people ventured out, often in amazement.
“I think this was as bad as it gets, really, in terms of how large the storm was,” said Burke, the meteorologist, noting the span of disruption from Arkansas to Massachusetts.
“This will rank up there among the top five storms of recent decades.”