Millions of Americans will start digging themselves out after a blizzard and hurricane-force winds immobilised Washington, New York and north-eastern US states, killing at least 19 people.
The storm was the second biggest in New York City’s history, dumping 68cm (26.8in) of snow by midnight on Saturday, just short of the record 68.3cm set in 2006.
People were killed in weather-related car crashes in Arkansas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia. One person died in Maryland and three in New York City while shovelling snow. Two died of hypothermia in Virginia, officials said. In North Carolina, a man whose car had veered off an icy road was arrested on charges of killing a motorist who stopped to help.
After depositing more than half a metre of snow on the Washington area, the storm unexpectedly strengthened as it reached New York City. The blizzard dropped snow from the Gulf Coast to New England, with areas of Washington surpassing 76cm. The heaviest unofficial report of snowfall was in a rural area of West Virginia, not far from Harpers Ferry, with just over a metre.
The snow also engulfed the mid-Atlantic cities of Baltimore and Philadelphia, while about 150,000 people in North Carolina and 90,000 homes in New Jersey lost electricity.
“This is kind of a top 10 snowstorm,” said Paul Kocin, a meteorologist and winter storm expert.
New York City turned into a ghost town. There were no Broadway shows and Bruce Springsteen cancelled Sunday’s scheduled show at Madison Square Garden. A ban on all travel on New York City area and Long Island roads, except for emergency vehicles, was set to end at 7am on Sunday. Bridges and tunnels into the city were also set to reopen.
Subway trains running above ground and trains operated by the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North stopped service on Saturday. Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, said services could be restored on Sunday, weather permitting, and that a decision would be made at 6am.
Given the storm’s impact, it was too soon to tell if Wall Street’s reopening on Monday would be affected. In Washington, monuments that would typically be busy with tourists stood vacant.
Airlines cancelled nearly 7,000 weekend flights and have started to cut Monday services as the storm, which brought many east coast airports to a standstill, threatened to disrupt the start of the working week. Flight cancellations for Monday for all airlines stood at 606 as of early Sunday morning, but FlightAware, the aviation data site, said the number was certain to rise.
Most of Saturday’s 4,459 cancellations were at airports in the New York City and Washington DC metropolitan areas. Another 2,467 flights were cancelled for Sunday. As the storm intensified, United Airlines announced it would not operate out of airports in the Washington area on Sunday. Service should gradually resume on Monday, the airline said. “Very limited” service would restart on Sunday afternoon at airports in the New York City area.
The number of cancelled flights since Friday has exceeded 10,000. Cancellations have hit mainly Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina, Philadelphia, Washington and New York, with airlines essentially shutting down all flights into those cities.
High winds battered the entire east coast, from North Carolina to New York, reaching 70mph in Wallops Island, Virginia, late on Friday, causing a storm surge and coastal flooding. Tides higher than those caused by Superstorm Sandy three years ago pushed water on to roads along the Jersey shore and Delaware coast and set records in Cape May, New Jersey, and Lewes, Delaware.
Wildwood, a town of more than 5,000 people about 30 miles south-west of Atlantic City on a barrier island, saw some of the worst flooding. Emergency workers in inflatable boats rescued more than 100 people from their homes. Water levels reached chest height in parts of Wildwood, and refrigerators and soda machines floated down the high street.
Further north, barrier islands near Atlantic City also experienced significant tidal flooding. The high tides were set to return on Sunday morning.
