A massive winter storm that slammed the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic with blizzard conditions on Monday led to widespread power outages and forced thousands of flights to be canceled.
More than 40 million people were under blizzard warnings along 700 miles of the East Coast from Maryland to Maine, and travel bans were issued across multiple states. The region grappled with slick roads and whiteout conditions.
Power outages
Some 353,000 homes and businesses had no power along the East Coast as of 7:15 a.m. EST Tuesday, according to poweroutage.us. Massachusetts, with approximately 255,000, had the most outages.
New Jersey was seeing almost 36,000, while Delaware and Rhode Island had tens of thousands.
Flight cancellations and delays
More than 11,000 flights have been canceled from Sunday through Tuesday, according to flight tracking service FlightAware.
Flights were basically suspended from Philadelphia north to Boston. Many of the cancellations were at major hubs in Boston, New York and Philadelphia, although Baltimore and Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Virginia were also seeing a significant number of cancellations.
Airlines began canceling flights on Saturday to get ahead of the storm. Cancellations for Monday topped 5,700, while Sunday saw more than 3,400 cancellations.
More than 2,000 U.S. flights have been canceled for Tuesday, which is when airlines are hoping to resume service in some areas. Airports in Boston and New Yok have roughly half of Tuesday’s cancellations of departing flights.
Snowfall totals
Snow accumulation climbed well into the double digits Monday, with parts of Long Island and New Jersey reporting more than 2 feet, CBS New York reported.
Babylon, New York, was reporting over 29 inches, while Freehold, New Jersey, got more than 26 inches.
In New York City, more than 19 inches of snow piled up in Central Park, making it the ninth biggest in the city’s record books dating back to 1869.
This map shows how much snow has fallen across the region:
Some travel bans finally lifting
As the storm passed, cities began lifting their travel bans.
At noon, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani lifted a ban on all nonessential travel that had left the city’s normally busy streets virtually deserted during the worst of the snowfall. He also said city schools would be open for in-person learning on Tuesday.
“New York City continues to meet the urgency of this historic blizzard, and we will not stop until the storm has passed and our city is fully up and moving again,” Mamdani said. But he noted, “conditions on the road are still icy and dangerous, and we encourage New Yorkers to take public transportation if needed [and] stay indoors when possible.”
In New Jersey, the statewide travel ban was lifted around 2 p.m.; however, state police urged motorists to avoid unnecessary travel.
In Westchester County, north of New York City, a road ban was lifted at 6 p.m.
In Boston, Mayor Michelle Wu urged people to stay off the roads.
“Boston is no stranger to nor’easters, but this is gonna be a big one,” she said. “And so we need everyone to just be inside, stay warm, stay safe, and let the plows do their work.”
Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey issued a travel ban for the South Coast of Massachusetts on Monday as the area had been hit hardest by the blizzard. She signed an executive order banning nonessential motor vehicle travel in Bristol, Plymouth and Barnstable counties, citing dangerous road conditions. She later added Dukes County, which encompasses Martha’s Vineyard, to the travel ban Speed limits on the Mass Pike have also been reduced to 40 mph.
The National Weather Service had said travel conditions were “nearly impossible” during the height of the storm.
Heavy snow and gusty winds created blizzard conditions, causing chaos on Interstate 95 up the busy Northeast corridor. On highways in Connecticut, some drivers resorted to pushing their cars stuck in the snow, while others were caught up in wrecks that caused hourslong traffic delays.
