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US Northeast Blanketed in Snow
Snarling air travel across the country and overseas, a powerful storm plastered the Northeast of the U.S. with snow and ice Monday in an expected two-day assault that could be the region's biggest blast of winter in years. One to 3 feet of snow was forecast across much of New Jersey, New York and New England by early Wednesday. Schools were closed Monday for millions of youngsters from West Virginia to Maine.
The nor'easter had been forecast days in advance, and people had plenty of time to stock up on groceries, snow shovels and videos, stripping shelves bare in some stores.
The heaviest snowfall from the slow-moving storm was expected Tuesday, but by Monday a foot or more had already fallen in upstate New York and northeastern Pennsylvania. Elsewhere, sleet and freezing rain glazed sidewalks and highways.
Meteorologists warned that the storm could be similar to the blizzard of 1978, which buried southern New England in 3 feet of snow, caused more than 100 deaths and battered coastal areas with high waves.
New York's Education Department estimated 80% of the state's public and private schools were closed, affecting 3.1 million students, including 1.1 million in New York City. Every school in Connecticut was shuttered, keeping more than 500,000 kids at home. In Boston, some 62,000 youngsters got the day off. Philadelphia schools closed early, and hundreds of thousands of students were sent home.
Airlines canceled hundreds of flights at the New York metropolitan area's LaGuardia, Kennedy and Newark airports, and more than 400 flights were called off at Boston's airport. Swissair grounded flights that would have carried about 1,600 passengers to and from Europe on Monday.
While utility crews and state emergency workers were on standby, nonessential government workers were told to stay home and off the roads in Connecticut, New York City's suburbs, Massachusetts and New Jersey.
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