New York airports reopen after blizzard

2010-12-28 08:03

New York - Thousands of travellers trying to get home after the holiday weekend sat bored and bleary-eyed in airports and shivered aboard stuck buses and subway trains, stranded by a blizzard that slammed the US Northeast with more than 60cm of snow.

The storm worked its way up the coast from the Carolinas to Maine with winds up to 130km/h that whirled the snow into deep drifts across streets, railroad tracks and runways.

Snowfall totals included 30cm in Tidewater, Virginia, and Philadelphia, 74cm in parts of northern New Jersey, 60cm north of New York City, and more than 46cm in Boston.

Airports reopening

The storm closed all three of the New York metropolitan area's airports on Sunday and stymied most other means of transportation. Buses sputtered to a halt in snow drifts. Trains stopped in their tracks. Taxi drivers abandoned their cabs in the middle of New York's snow-clogged streets. Even the New York City subway system - usually dependable during a snowstorm - broke down in spots, trapping riders for hours.

By Monday evening, planes had begun landing at Kennedy and LaGuardia airports. Flights were expected to begin arriving at the airport in Newark, New Jersey, later in the night.

A Royal Jordanian flight touched down shortly before 19:00 (midnight GMT) at John F Kennedy International Airport, the first to arrive since the blizzard hit, said Steve Coleman, of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airports.
Just before an Air Canada flight from Toronto touched down at LaGuardia Airport about 40 minutes later, the captain came over the loudspeaker and informed passengers that it was the first to land at the airport since the blizzard hit.

"Everyone was clapping toward the end," said Patrick Wacker, 37, who had been stranded in Toronto for a day while trying to get back to New York after visiting his parents in Frankfurt, Germany.

Wacker and other passengers said there was some turbulence on landing and the plane had to be towed to the gate because it couldn't get through the snow on the runway.

'People are exhausted'

Countless cold, hungry and tired passengers were hunkered down in airports, train stations and bus depots. Some were given cots and blankets. Others used their luggage as pillows, curled into chairs, or made beds by spreading towels on the floor or overturning the plastic bins used for sending items through airport security.

"People are exhausted. They want to get home," sighed Eric Schorr, marooned at New York's Kennedy Airport since Sunday afternoon by the storm.

Some airline passengers could be stuck for days. Many planes are booked solid because of the busy holiday season, and airlines are operating fewer flights because of the economic downturn.

As bad as the storm was, it could have been worse if it had been an ordinary work day. Children are home from school all week on Christmas vacation, and lots of people had taken off from work.

Many youngsters went out and frolicked in the snow, some of them using the sleds they got for Christmas.

The storm was New York City's sixth worst since 1869, when records began, said Adrienne Leptich, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

A February 11-12, 2006, storm dropped 68.3cm of snow on Central Park, breaking the previous record, set in 1947.

Knee-deep snow

Many side streets in the city remained unploughed well into the day on Monday, and pedestrians stumbled over drifts and trudged through knee-deep snow in some places. Numerous people simply gave up trying to use the sidewalks, instead walking down the middle of partially ploughed streets. Some New Yorkers complained that snowplough crews were neglecting neighbourhoods in the outer boroughs in favour of Manhattan.

A testy Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the city's cleanup effort, saying the furious pace of the snowfall required crews to plough streets repeatedly to keep them open. And abandoned cars slowed the process further because ploughs could not get through, he said.

"It's being handled by the best professionals in the business," Bloomberg said, urging people not to get upset. "It's a snowstorm, and it really is inconvenient for a lot of people."

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- AP