Storm Batters East, Closing Schools and Halting Flights

Storm Batters East, Closing Schools and Halting Flights
By JAMES BARRON
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: February 10, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/11/nyregion/11snow.html?th&emc=th


The second blustery snowstorm to sweep across the Northeast in less than a week swaggered into the New York area on Wednesday morning, closing schools, courts and the United Nations and playing havoc with the rhythms and routines of everyone who did not simply stay home.

The storm, described by the National Weather Service as a nor’easter that had gathered force off the mid-Atlantic coast, delivered a second dose of midwinter misery to Washington, Baltimore and Philadelphia, which were still recovering from last week’s blizzard. The Pennsylvania Turnpike lowered the speed limit to 45 miles an hour and banned some tractor-trailers and all recreational vehicles.

And forecasters warned that more messy weather was on the way: Another storm with heavy snow could rumble in on Monday.

Wednesday’s storm was a huge cottony blob swirling across the maps behind the forecasters on television. The National Weather Service called it a nor’easter and reported that it had had gathered force off the mid-Atlantic coast. Its beauty was deceptive: It had an angry side, though New York mostly saw its nicer face in the morning. Indeed, just afternoon, the storm seemed to pause over Manhattan.

The city had gone through a slow windup after days of forecasters’ warnings — and after largely missing out on the storm last weekend that stopped much of the rest of the East Coast in very deep tracks. By the time most New Yorkers turned out the lights and went to bed on Tuesday, only light snow was falling — a tease for what the meteorologists insisted was coming. By 8 a.m., the wind was swirling and slush was flirting with turning slippery and treacherous.

“It’s here,” said Brian Ciemnecki, a forecaster with the National Weather Service, and the measurements backed him up. The Weather Service said that by 9 a.m., 5.5 inches had fallen in Elizabeth, N.J.; 5 inches in Eltingville, Staten Island; 4.6 inches at the Weather Service’s own office in Upton, on Long Island; 4.5 inches in the Bronx; and 3.5 inches in Astoria, Queens. Earlier readings had foretold headaches at the area’s airports, with 2 inches at John F. Kennedy and 1.2 inches at LaGuardia at 7 a.m.

Mr. Ciemnecki said that New York would see 12 to 15 inches by day’s end — a lot, to be sure, but less than had piled up in places farther south during the storm last week. In New York itself, the worst was expected later in the day, potentially creating a nightmarish commute home. Some transit lines planned extra service for early afternoon, figuring that workers who made it into the city in the morning would abandon their desks before the regular quitting time.

The city had plowed most major roadways overnight, and transit agencies reported that trains and buses began the day on schedule. There were unusual precautions, taken to keep things moving: many city subway trains had been left in tunnels overnight to keep them from freezing, and New Jersey Transit promised to honor bus passes and tickets on its trains — an important consideration for homeward-bound commuters if the buses could not negotiate slippery roads.

“This storm is coming at precisely the wrong time to drive home tomorrow,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said at a news conference on Tuesday. He urged people to use mass transit.

But officials hoped many people would take the day off, or work from home. Mr. Bloomberg took the rare step of ordering schools closed on Wednesday, as did officials in school districts in nearly every major city along the Eastern Seaboard, from Baltimore to Philadelphia to Boston. That guaranteed that Wednesday would be a day for hopping on sleds instead of school buses.

But the mayor did not give city employees the day off. He said that workers who needed to stay home and look after their children could take leave time — “but,” he added, “that will be up to the individual supervisors.”

The courts in New York City and nearby counties — Nassau and Suffolk on Long Island, and Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam and Dutchess — shut down, from housing court to criminal court, except for arraignments, emergency hearings on motions for temporary restraining orders and orders of protection.

“The forecast was so definite,” said David Bookstaver, a spokesman for the state court system. “Litigants, jurors and employees shouldn’t have to travel in a blizzard.” He said it was the first time in memory that the New York courts had taken such an advance precaution.

Transportation up and down the East Coast was already grinding to a halt. Several major airlines — including Southwest and Continental — announced that they had canceled many if not all of their Wednesday flights from Washington, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. At the three major airports in the New York area, flights were “very minimal,” said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs the airports.

Amtrak said that it would continue its Northeast regional train service but warned of disruptions. Mr. Coleman of the Port Authority said there were few passengers on the PATH rail system, a sign that commuters had apparently decided to sit out the storm at home.

He said that the bridges and tunnels the Port Authority operates — including the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels and the George Washington Bridge — were “fine.” The only major concern was a 20-mile-an-hour speed limit on three Port Authority bridges on Staten Island, the Outerbridge Crossing and the Goethals and Bayonne bridges.

In Washington, all but emergency workers were given the day off Wednesday; some suburban school systems in Maryland had already given up on classes for the rest of the week. The House majority leader, Steny H. Hoyer, a Democrat from Maryland, said that the snow had created such a challenge for workers trying to clear streets in Washington that Congress would consider giving the city federal disaster assistance. New York suspended its alternate-side parking regulations for the day, although people still had to pay at parking meters and Muni-Meters. That word did not reach everyone. Scott Spector, who works for an investment firm, swept the snow off his sport utility vehicle and moved it to a new space because he had not heard that he did not have to.He was happy about the new space, though. It was a tight fit, with little room for snow shoved aside by plows to wedge him in. He said that would serve him well when the time came to drive off.

For some New Yorkers, it was just another day. Tyrek Goggins, 26, went for his regular 12-mile run. He wore a ski mask, a thermal-lined shirt and shorts, the same as always, though as a concession to the snow and the cold he rubbed down his legs with petroleum jelly. “It’s like a layer over the skin,” he said as he bounded past the reservoir in Central Park.

The storm had originated in the Midwest, leaving behind as much as a foot of snow on Tuesday. It snarled traffic in the air and on the ground in Chicago, Minneapolis and Detroit. “We’re used to it,” said Matt Smith, a spokesman for Chicago’s Department of Streets and Sanitation.

But in places not accustomed to so much snow in such a short time, many people seemed to be straining to cope. Washington’s Department of Transportation said it had 750 people working 12-hour shifts using 250 pieces of snow equipment. Some of those machines broke down from continuous use, and crews were still far from finished clearing Washington’s streets three days after the last storm.

“I’m not sure what we could have done, except have more equipment, and because we don’t normally get this storm, it would be a waste of the taxpayers’ money,” said Karyn LeBlanc, a spokeswoman for the department. “People have to understand that this is unprecedented.”



Anahad O’Connor, Liz Robbins and Stacey Solie contributed reporting for this article.