The East Coast Digs Out

At least 36 people died as a result of the storm: nine in NY, six in North Carolina, six in Virginia, four in SC, three in Pennsylvania, three in New Jersey and one each in Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Delaware and Washington.

The timing could not have been better: The heaviest snow began falling Friday evening, and tapered off just before midnight Saturday.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said her city had experienced a “historic snow event”.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio encouraged people to leave their plowed-in cars covered with snow all week. Judy Tenenbaum refused, and walked a dozen blocks to reach a stop where at least some snow was cleared.

“Oh my God, she’s so excited – we left the house this morning and we packed a bunch of stuff to make a snowman”, she said.

About 30 deaths were attributed to the snowstorm, caused by vehicle collisions, carbon monoxide poisoning and heart attacks suffered while shoveling snow. The heaviest unofficial report was in a rural area of West Virginia, not far from Harpers Ferry, with 40 inches.

Broadway shows reopened Sunday after going dark at the last minute during the snowstorm, but Bruce Springsteen called off his Sunday concert at Madison Square Garden.

More than 1500 flights in and out of major east coast airports in Washington, Baltimore, New York, and Philadelphia were canceled Monday while commuter rail service gradually returned to normal schedules.

Major airlines also canceled hundreds of flights for Monday.

Besides the challenge of quickly clearing snow and ice from their facilities and equipment, transit systems operators had to figure out how to get snowbound employees to work.

Amtrak operated a reduced number of trains, but bus and rail service was expected to be limited into Monday.

But even as United Airlines said limited service might begin later in the afternoon in New York City, airports in the Washington D.C. area were likely to remain closed Sunday, and other airlines started to cut Monday service in addition to the 7,000 already-canceled weekend flights.

Most of the city was without electricity, he said, and the phones at the emergency dispatch center were jammed all day.

New York’s Central Park official reading of 26.8 inches was the second deepest recorded since 1869.

All but one of the city’s Metrorail lines will be open for service on Tuesday, officials said. Flights resumed at Baltimore-Washington Thurgood Marshall International Airport on Sunday.

The National Weather Service said 17.8 inches (45.2 cm) fell in Washington, tying as the fourth-largest snowfall in the city’s history. An official total of 22.4 inches landed at the National Zoo, but since some of that fell Friday night, it might not have beat the city’s single-day record of 21 inches, set on January 28, 1922. The Zoo remained closed through Monday but a video of giant panda Tian Tian making snow angels got more than 48 million views. Joining the fun, Jeffrey Perez, of Millersville, Maryland, climbed into a panda suit and rolled around in the snow, snagging more than half a million views of his own.

Dump trucks laden with increasingly dirty snow rumbled through the streets and crews in bright red shirts went at it with shovels.

Icy roads, runways, and train tracks, plus mounds of snow burying cars, equals a quiet start of the week for all except those responsible for getting transportation networks back up and running.

“It seems like they move really slow cleaning the snow here in D.C.”, said Qahwash, originally from MI. Marvin Jacob Lee was finally arrested by a SWAT team after repeatedly firing at Jefferson Heavner, the sheriff said.

Snow and sleet also hit the southern states of Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, West Virginia and Virginia – unusual for the region. The trooper was in China Grove, North Carolina, and asked the people operating the vehicles to get off the road, only for them to charge him; the trooper has since been treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

The National Weather Service has issued a warning for the New Jersey coast until noon Sunday.

A spokeswoman for the New York Stock Exchange said the bourse planned to open as usual on Monday.

The calendar may have said Monday, but for lots of people along the East Coast, it was another snow day instead.