Massive blizzard brings US East Coast to standstill, 19 dead

Millions of residents, business owners and workers began digging out on Sunday from a massive blizzard with hurricane-force winds that brought much of the Us East coast to a standstill, killing at least 19 people in several states and stranding tens of thousands.

An estimated 80 million across  20 states are facing a second day of being trapped in their homes due to heavy snow and dangerous conditions, which are expected to last until Sunday. After days of weather warnings, flooding, snow and hurricane-strength winds, most people in the storm’s path heeded requests to stay home and off the roads, which were largely deserted.

Yet at least 19 deaths were blamed on the weather. 13 people were killed in weather-related car crashes in Arkansas, North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia on Saturday. One person died in Maryland and three in New York while shovelling snow. Two died of hypothermia in Virginia, officials said.

The storm was the second-biggest in New York City history, with 26.8 inches (68 cm) by midnight last Saturday, just shy of the record 26.9 inches set in 2006, the National Weather Services said. 

After dumping about two feet of snow on the Washington area, the storm unexpectedly strengthened as it spun northward and slammed into the New York metropolitan area on Saturday, home to about 20 million people.

Winds gusting to more than 64 kph sculpted drifts many feet high, burying cars. And there is more snow to come, forecasters warned.

“This is going to be one of those generational events, where your parents talk about how bad it was,” Ryan Maue, a meteorologist for WeatherBell Analytics, said from Tallahassee, Florida, which also got some flakes.

The weather system was mammoth, dropping snow from the Gulf Coast to the northeastern New England states. By afternoon, areas near Washington had surpassed 30in of snow. The heaviest unofficial report was in a rural area of West Virginia, not far from Harper’s Ferry, with 40in.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency, as did 10 other governors. A ban imposed on all travel on New York City area roads and on Long Island, except for emergency vehicles, was set to end at 7 a.m. on Sunday. Bridges and tunnels into the city were also set to reopen.

“It seems the weather forecasters got it right this time,” New York governor Andrew Cuomo said at a morning press conference. “There is a blizzard.”

In New York, the normally bustling streets were deserted, while authorities in neighbouring New Jersey halted public transportation and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority took the rare step of suspending operations through Sunday.

About 3,500 flights were cancelled on Sunday, with more than 600 already cancelled for Monday.