Travelers struggle; shows go on
NEW YORK -- Air travel was halted for thousands of people and highway traffic slowed to a crawl across wide areas of the Northeast because of yesterday's blizzard.
The storm that pounded New England also dumped 17 inches of snow on Brooklyn, N.Y., 18 inches on parts of Long Island and New Jersey, and at least 20 inches on New York's Catskills.
The same weather system had earlier piled a foot of snow across parts of Wisconsin, Michigan, Indiana, and northern Ohio.
Outside New England, at least 10 deaths were linked to the weather: three in Ohio, three in Wisconsin, two in Pennsylvania, and one each in Maryland and Iowa.
Nearly 500 airline flights were canceled yesterday morning at the New York metropolitan area's Newark, Kennedy, and La Guardia airports, in addition to about 700 that were grounded Saturday, Port Authority officials said.
Cassie Szczotka of Marietta, Ga., wound up at a motel in Trenton, N.J., late Saturday after trying all day to get from Atlanta to Fort Dix, N.J., to see her husband, Captain Chris Szczotka, who is about to be deployed to Iraq for 16 months.
"You have no idea," an exhausted Szczotka said yesterday of her trip, which included canceled and diverted flights, two trains, and being stranded with a 7-year-old and a toddler at the Trenton train station until a local resident drove her to the motel. She rented a car yesterday and hoped to see her husband before he went back on duty this morning.
Shawn Simmons, 28, of Nashua, N.J., was stuck at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., on his return from a vacation in South America.
"Coming from Brazil, where it was 80 degrees, to 14 degrees and snow up here is such a pain," said Simmons, who planned to find a train to take him home.
Philadelphia's airport was open again yesterday after a shutdown and flight cancellations on Saturday stranded hundreds of travelers at the terminal overnight, but more than 70 departures were canceled.
Nearly 600 flights were canceled Saturday at Chicago's O'Hare International.
A Polar Air cargo plane slid off a runway at Kennedy on Saturday, and two airplanes slid off taxiways Saturday in Pittsburgh. No injuries were reported.
The storm's ripple effects also were felt in Florida. Fifty-five flights in and out of Miami International and 50 in and out of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International were canceled Saturday because of the weather in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Washington, D.C. About 6,500 Fort Lauderdale travelers were affected.
In Philadelphia, hit hard by the storm Saturday, the only white on the field for yesterday's NFC championship game were numbers and hash marks. More than 750 workers with shovels, plows, dump trucks, and loaders cleared Lincoln Financial Field for the game between the Philadelphia Eagles and Atlanta Falcons.
New York City residents who had to leave their homes yesterday battled wind gusts of more than 35 miles per hour and temperatures in the teens, in addition to towering snowdrifts and whiteout conditions.
"I don't mind the snow," said
Despite the blizzard, Broadway theaters decided the show must go on. All performances were scheduled as planned, said Alan Cohen, spokesman for the League of American Theaters and Producers.
New York City sanitation workers were working 12-hour shifts to clear the streets by this morning's rush hour.
Sammy Abadi arrived at his convenience store on West 34th Street before 7 a.m. yesterday and started shoveling the sidewalk.
"It took me two and a half hours to clean outside," he said. "I wish I had a lot of money to stay home in this weather."
