New York City bridges and tunnels to close due to snow

The New York Police Department’s Chief of Department Jim O’Neill told reporters Saturday one person on Staten Island and two people in Queens died.

At a press conference after the travel ban was announced, Mayor Bill de Blasio urged restaurants and theaters to shut down so that employees could get home.

“Our message, and we need the public to listen, is to stay home and to stay off the streets”. “But that job is in the system and we’ve got crews responding to that job right now”.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority buses stopped running at noon. The mayor said Thursday that this time around, that will not happen.

“We’re going to have a packed snow surface that will just be outstanding”, he said.

The National Weather Service is predicting between 2 and 10 inches of snow this weekend for the Lower Hudson Valley, with a winter storm watch in place for northern Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties, and a warning in place for southern Westchester.

“We’re loving it. We definitely want to come back”, said Michelle Jones, 46, a mortgage company controller who had tickets to see “The Phantom of Opera” with her daughter. Emergency crews have been delivering supplies and officials are working to move people to shelters if needed.

By Friday night, parts of Kentucky, the Virginias and North Carolina had already received well over a foot of snow, while more than a half a foot had fallen in some areas of Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Forecasters expect the storm to dump over 25 inches of snow before it dissipates during the early-morning hours on Sunday, Reuters reports. On Christmas Eve, the NWS reported that temperatures in New York’s Central Park peaked at 72 degrees Fahrenheit (22 Celsius), the warmest ever for the day since records began in 1871.