Travel ban for New York area lifted
Print Edition
A travel ban for the New York area was lifted yesterday but Washington was still at a standstill after a blizzard paralyzed the northeastern United States, killing at least 19 people.
The storm was the second-biggest in New York history, with 68 centimeters of snow in Central Park by midnight on Saturday, the National Weather Service said.
Thirteen people were killed in weather-related car crashes in Arkansas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia on Saturday. One person died in Maryland and three in New York while shoveling snow. Two died of hypothermia in Virginia, officials said.
By early yesterday the storm had moved off the coast, with remnants trailing over parts of Long Island and Cape Cod. Much of the northeast was expected to see a mix of sun and clouds yesterday with temperatures just above freezing.
Washington streets were deserted early yesterday, with major downtown arteries already cleared and lined with mounds of snow. Workers were clearing sidewalks and alleys, and Mayor Muriel Bowser issued a call for 4,000 people to help dig the city out, above the 2,000 volunteers already signed up.
The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, which includes the second-busiest US subway system, had suspended operations through yesterday.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo lifted a travel ban on New York-area roads and on Long Island at 7am yesterday. A state of emergency imposed by Cuomo was still in place.
Bridges and tunnels into the city also reopened, and subways running above ground were set to restart service yesterday morning. The Long Island Rail Road was still halted, and the Metro-North railroad would be fully operational by mid-afternoon, officials said.
The National Weather Service said 45.2 cm fell in Washington, tying as the fourth-largest snowfall in the city’s history. Baltimore-Washington International Airport notched a record 74.2 cm, and the deepest total was 106.7 cm which fell at Glengarry, West Virginia.
A spokeswoman for the New York Stock Exchange said the bourse planned to open as usual today.
About 3,750 flights were cancelled yesterday, and 700 cancelled for today, according FlightAware.com, the aviation data and tracking website.
Flights had begun landing at John F. Kennedy International Airport and would soon start taking off from the facility, Cuomo said in a news conference.
United Airlines said it would not operate at Washington-area airports yesterday, and would gradually resume service today. The airline had planned to start “very limited operations” yesterday afternoon at its Newark, New Jersey, hub.
About 150,000 customers in North Carolina and 90,000 in New Jersey lost electricity during the storm.
On the New Jersey shore, a region hard-hit in 2012 by Superstorm Sandy, the storm drove flooding high tides.
They were expected to reach 91 cm above normal across the New Jersey coast, said Mitchell Gaines, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
“There’s considerable danger with the tide coming up,” he said.
Some residents had to be evacuated along the New Jersey shore on Saturday as waters rose.
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