US east coast digs out from massive snowstorm, again
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Battered residents across the eastern US seaboard were digging out from under record snowfalls Thursday that paralyzed the region, and wearily braced for yet more winter misery on the way.
Wednesday's blizzard has turned the 2009-2010 winter into the snowiest ever on record for Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia, snapping air and rail links across much of the region and leaving roads too dangerous to navigate.
Millions were trapped at home, many without power, and the federal government was shut down Thursday for the fourth day in a row -- at a cost of an estimated 100 million dollars a day in lost productivity.
Thousands of flights were canceled or delayed at airports in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Newark, while strong winds and black ice made driving especially perilous.
"We're moving out of the public safety threat of this and by end of the day will move into the digging-out phase and getting Maryland back to work," Maryland governor Martin O'Malley pledged.
He warned that with snow drifts several feet deep in many parts of the state, heavy lifting equipment and bulldozers were being brought into remove the snow as plows were unable to cope.
The blizzards that affected tens of millions of people from Virginia to Massachusetts through Ohio and Kentucky were accompanied by Arctic winds of up to 55 miles (88 kilometers) per hour.
As exhausted residents longed for some respite after being walloped by a major weekend storm compounded by Wednesday's blizzard, forecasters warned further bad weather could dump more snow on the area Monday.
Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty hailed the snow plowers' "real heroic work" and vowed to do better, noting the nation's capital has been blanketed with nearly four times as much snow than the annual average of 15 inches.
The city's domestic Reagan airport, still closed Thursday, has already logged in 55.9 inches (1.4 meters) of snow in past weeks.
"There's always things that you that you could do better. Mayors should always prepare themselves to do better next time," Fenty told MSNBC television, as tempers among harried commuters began to fray over the snow-clogged streets.
The city has already spent six times its annual budget on snow removal, as space to put the stuff scooped off the roads and sidewalks begins to run out.
Washington and the surrounding states of Maryland and Virginia have also requested help from the federal government to help cope with the impact.
Nearly 6,000 flights in airports between Washington and New York were canceled at the height of the latest storm, stranding tens of thousands of passengers and hitting journeys across the country, officials said.
But Dulles international airport and its sister airport in Baltimore were gradually reopening.
A USA Today survey of carriers estimated that at least 5,700 flights were canceled on Wednesday alone, one of the biggest air travel disruptions since the September 11, 2001 attacks, which caused tens of thousands of flight cancellations for two days.
Another 1,000 flights were expected to be canceled Thursday, the newspaper said. In comparison, airlines canceled 2,700 flights for the entire month of November, according to federal Bureau of Transportation Statistics figures.
Analysts warned it could take days for airlines to recover from the backlog.
Washington's public transportation system was still only providing limited service Thursday. Only a few bus routes were operating and above ground subway stations remained closed.
Schools in the Washington-Baltimore area are not expected to reopen until after Monday's President's Day holiday. But in New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg ordered children back to school on Thursday after they won a rare snow day.
Most people appeared so far to have heeded warnings to stay home, so the number of fatalities have been low.
One person was killed and another injured in a pile-up in central Pennsylvania that closed a major interstate highway for hours on Wednesday.
Some 60 people were hospitalized with injuries in a 50-car pileup in Williamsburg, Virginia on another major north-south interstate artery. And in New Jersey, a man was reported to have died when by a branch weighed down with snow fell on him.
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