East Coast Confronts Storm’s Aftermath
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR
Published: February 11, 2010
Multimedia
Your Photos: Submit Here or to pix@nyt.com.
More From City Room »
Related
Climate-Change Debate Is Heating Up in Deep Freeze(February 11, 2010)
Our Towns: Storms Had Romance, Once (February 11, 2010)
Mayors Grow Attuned to the Politics of Snow Removal(February 11, 2010)
After a Slow Start, a Snowstorm That Exceeds Expectations(February 11, 2010)
City’s Courts Get Snow Day, Too, but Not Everyone Got to Go Home (February 11, 2010)
City Room: A Burmese Refugee’s First Snow
Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times
A park in Chelsea at 27th Street and 10th Avenue. Wednesday's snowstorm in New York City began with mostly slush but saved its punch for later. More Photos »
Librado Romero/The New York Times
Sledding in Fort Tryon Park in Manhattan, as children took advantage of a rare school closing. More Photos »
Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times
The rail station in Ossining, N.Y., Wednesday morning. Many commuters headed home early. More Photos »
Readers' Comments
Share your thoughts.
But as the storm cleared, the Eastern seaboard was left to struggle Thursday through its lingering aftermath: snowbound airports; federal agencies in the nation’s capital shut down again, as they have all week; roads coated in sleet; and schools seemingly everywhere but New York City still shuttered or set to open hours behind schedule.
The powerful storm, which paralyzed the corridor from Washington to New York, also left behind a combination of strong winds, freezing temperatures and piles of snow that ensured a slushy, strenuous Thursday morning commute for the 50 million Americans left in its wake.
“Thursday morning is going to be tricky at best,” said Jack Boston, a senior meteorologist at Accuweather.com.
By early Thursday, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington had announced new annual snow records, and more than a foot of snow lay across parts of New Jersey, Connecticut and Long Island. The National Weather Service said that 10 inches had fallen on Central Park, between 8 and 9 inches on LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy airports, and Great Kills in Richmond County, N.Y., received a startling 17 inches.
New York’s mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, announced that city schools would re-open Thursday morning and offered his sympathies to millions of children — and perhaps a few teachers — who were hoping for another day off. But his was a rare decision. Many schools throughout Long Island, New Jersey, and the rest of the Tri-State area remained closed, as was the case with the Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia school systems.
With Wednesday’s blizzard compounding the effects of last week’s storm in Washington, the federal government announced another snow day. For the fourth consecutive day, all non-emergency workers were told to stay home and stay off the roads in a city that has been paralyzed since Sunday from an earlier storm.
At the three major airports in the New York area, flights that were scheduled for Thursday morning were in limbo. Officials at LaGuardia and Kennedy airports said several airlines — including Southwest and Continental — had canceled all or many of their morning flights, and they warned passengers, even those with later flights, to call ahead before heading to the airport.
And Philadelphia International Airport, which had accumulated 14 inches by the end of Wednesday, said there was a good chance a large chunk of its flights would be scrubbed Thursday. Crews were working feverishly to clear snow from runways further south in Washington, but officials at Dulles International and Reagan National airports said many of their flights remained uncertain as well.
On the ground, Long Island Rail Road said that after a day of service disruptions and half-empty trains — the railway had only 46 percent ridership Wednesday — it was preparing for a normal morning rush hour. New Jersey Transit was set to restore its bus service and said customers should brace for rail and road delays.
In the aftermath of the storm, tens of thousands of homes and businesses along the east coast, from Virginia to Pennsylvania, were left without power late Wednesday through early Thursday. About 30,000 households in Southeastern Pennsylvania alone were struggling with outages by mid-day Wednesday, said Michael Wood, a spokesman for PECO, the local utility. Emergency crews there and in states all along the eastern seaboard were racing to correct the same problems: collapsed power lines, brought down by icing and wet, heavy snow.
In Pennsylvania, the snow was also to blame for a seven-car pileup that resulted in at least one death, on I-80 near Clearfield, in the central part of the state, the Department of Transportation said.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar