Quick-moving winter storm brings snow to Northeast
HARTFORD, Conn. — A quick-moving winter storm that hit the Northeast on Tuesday brought significant snowfall to some areas while others got less than expected. At least one person died, accidents were reported on slippery roads, airline flights were canceled or delayed and many school districts closed or switched to remote learning — or at least tried to switch.
Some areas of Pennsylvania and Connecticut were blanketed in 15 inches of fluffy snow, while New York City’s Central Park only saw about 3 inches of slushy snow, according to National Weather Service reports.
“It’s been a quiet winter, so it’s kind of welcoming,” Ricky Smith said as he made his way to a construction job in New York City. “I just hope nobody gets hurt.”
In New York City, the nation’s largest school district opted to shift to remote learning instead of giving students and staff a snow day, sparking criticism by many. And when classes began, technical problems prevented many of the 915,000 students from logging in, exacerbating the discontent.
Chong Bretillon, a parent in Queens, said she received repeated errors as she tried to gain entry to a Zoom room for her elementary school student, while messaging with dozens of other parents who were encountering the same problems.
“I just spent almost an hour trying to log in and log out,” Bretillon said. “Everyone’s frustrated.”
New York Mayor Eric Adams defended the decision to go remote in the schools, saying it was necessary
because of learning losses during the coronavirus pandemic.
School officials blamed the troubles on IBM, with Schools Chancellor David Banks saying the company “was not ready for primetime.”
IBM said in a statement
Tuesday afternoon that it worked with the schools and the issues “were largely resolved,” but the company did not immediately respond to questions about what specifically happened and why. City officials said there were problems with authentication services.
More than 1,000 flights were canceled Tuesday morning, mostly at the airports in the New York City area and in Boston. Accidents were reported across the region and several states banned tandem and empty tractor-trailers from highways.
There were more than 145,000 power outages reported Tuesday morning in Pennsylvania and several thousand in New Jersey, but few outages in New York and New England, according to the tracking site poweroutage. us.
Authorities in Newberry Township, Pennsylvania, said a man operating a snowmobile was killed when he hit a downed utility line around 8 a.m. Tuesday during the storm. The cause and manner of death were pending further investigation.
At the time of the crash, police said in a statement that the area was “experiencing a multitude of weather-related conditions due to a winter storm which caused downed trees, downed power lines and hazardous travel conditions throughout the area.”
Ahead of the storm, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey told all non-essential Executive Branch employees to not report to work Tuesday. Boston schools were closed and a parking ban was in effect until 4 p.m. Similar closures and bans were put in place in other cities and towns.
Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said the city’s homeless shelters would remain open.
At a news conference, New York City officials said that despite the snow predictions, they had no plans to relocate people from several large, heated tent shelter complexes built for thousands of homeless migrants.