NEW YORK—East Coast residents clobbered by the weekend blizzard trudged into the workweek Monday amid slippery roads, spotty transit service and mounds of snow that buried cars and blocked sidewalks after some cities got an entire winter’s snow in two days.
In Brooklyn, only one teacher at the Bedford-Stuyvesant New Beginnings Charter School called out, despite more than 2 feet of snow across New York City.
“A lot of teachers are taking the train instead of driving,” said Wanda Morales, director of operations at the school, standing outside while maintenance workers spread salt and parents dropped off their children.
In Arlington, Virginia, just across the Potomac River from Washington, there were signs of normalcy; shops were open, and main roadways were mostly cleared, dotted with large piles of snow. Matthew Mason, 29, was riding the train into Washington to go to his job at a hotel. The part-time law student said he figured he should be there, though things would likely be a little slower.
“I’ve sat in my house too much already,” he said.
(Francois Xavier Marit/AFP/Getty Images)
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio encouraged people to leave their plowed-in cars all week. Some didn’t have a choice.
“I cleaned this two or three times and they keep blocking me in,” Peter Quamina, 51, said as he shoveled out the front of his driveway in Brooklyn. “This storm was bad as we get.”
Federal offices were closed Monday, and Virginia’s state workers were told to stay home. Schools from Washington to the Jersey Shore gave students Monday off; In the D.C. suburbs, classes also were canceled for Tuesday. Schools were open in New York City.
New York’s transit authority said partial service on the Long Island Rail Road was restored on three of its 12 branches and diesel train service was operating on three other branches. New York City subways, buses and Metro-North Railroad service were operating on a normal schedule. The Metro in Washington was offering free rides on limited rail and bus service.
Broadway reopened after going dark at the last minute during the snowstorm, but museums remained closed in Washington, and the House of Representatives postponed votes until February, citing the storm’s impact on travel.
Overall snowfall of 26.8 inches in Central Park made it New York’s second biggest winter storm since records began in 1869, and Saturday’s 26.6 inches made for a single-day record in the city.
Washington’s records were less clear. The official three-day total of 17.8 inches measured at Reagan National Airport was impossibly short of accumulations recorded elsewhere in the D.C. area. An official total of 22.4 inches landed at the National Zoo, for example.
The zoo remained closed through Monday but a video of its giant panda Tian Tian making snow angels got about 54 million views.
Friends Read Free