Scores of workers in the snowy Mid-Atlantic region of the US were given yesterday off to shovel out from a blizzard that buried some areas in almost a meter of snow as another, smaller storm loomed.
While the weekend winter blast offered prime sledding and snowball-hurling for many, stranded travelers and those struggling with no electricity wondered when they’d escape the icy, gray mess.
Federal agencies that employ 230,000 in Washington were closed yesterday, as were many businesses and school districts across the region.
PHOTO: AFP
Crews plowing streets and homeowners shoveling their walkways faced the possibility of another storm adding to the work. The National Weather Service issued a storm watch for the Washington area for today, saying there was potential for another 12cm or more of snow. Forecasters expect highs around freezing for the next few days, though sunshine yesterday was expected to help melt some of the snow, weather service meteorologist Bryan Jackson said.
The sight of cross-country skiers cascading down monument steps and flying snowballs has since given way to images of people hunched over snow shovels or huddled next to fireplaces.
John and Nicole Ibrahim and their two-year-old son, Joshua, have been without power at their suburban Washington home in Silver Spring, Maryland, since overnight on Friday. They were among hundreds of thousands without electricity across the region, and utilities warned it could be days before electricity is restored to everyone.
“We were all bundled up in the same bed together and [Joshua] was coughing in his sleep and his heart was racing, and we worried he might be getting pneumonia,” Nicole Ibrahim said.
The National Weather Service called the storm “historic” and reported 30cm of snow in parts of Ohio and 6cm or more in Washington, Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Parts of Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia got closer to 90cm.
In Philadelphia, 72cm of snow fell during the storm, just shy of the record 77.9cm during a January 1996 blizzard. Snow totals were even higher to the west in Pennsylvania.
Almost 45cm was recorded at Washington’s Reagan National Airport, which had canceled all flights. That’s the fourth-highest storm total for the city, and airport officials haven’t decided when flights would resume. At nearby Dulles International Airport in Virginia, the record was shattered with 81cm. Some flights there have resumed.
At Reagan National Airport, 59-year-old Gwen Dawkins was trying to get back to Detroit. She was supposed to leave on Saturday but still hadn’t on Sunday afternoon because of delays and cancellations. And she said there was “no way we’re getting out of here tonight.”
“You’ve got a whole city held captive here,” she said. “They were very ill-prepared.”
Authorities say most public transportation in Philadelphia has resumed. In Pittsburgh, bus service restarted but light-rail wasn’t running. Washington’s Metro trains were to be limited yesterday to underground rails, and its buses were going to operate on a very limited basis.
In Mount Lebanon, a suburb south of Pittsburgh, Robb and Meredith Hartlage were again trying to clear the sidewalk in front of their house.
“We did a couple hours yesterday. I would say about four hours mixed with sledding,” said Robb Hartlage, 40, who said he’s not too old to play in the snow. He acknowledged, however, that the shoveling was hard work.
“I made some ‘old man’ noises when I got out of bed,” he said.
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