From Washington to Boston, from Pennsylvania to Maine, tens of millions of residents were on high alert for this northward storm.
At 2 p.m. local, the snow cover reached 40 cm in places, and the snow should continue to fall thickly until the evening, and again Tuesday in lesser quantities, with squalls of up to 80 km / h.
According to data collected since 1869 in Central Park, a layer of more than 50 cm would rise in the eight snowiest episodes recorded in New York. The record dates from January 22-24, 2016 and the storm called Snowzilla, with nearly 70 cm.
State of emergency in New York
If the visibility conditions were generally better than those corresponding to the definition of a blizzard, some evoked the historic “great blizzard” of March 1888: the city, taken by surprise in early spring, had then deplored dozens of deaths and considerable material damage.
The mayor of the American economic capital, Bill de Blasio, declared a local state of emergency in order to facilitate the clearance work and the intervention of the emergency services.
It closed until Tuesday including schools that remained open despite the pandemic – mainly preschools and elementary schools – returning all students to online education.
Too much snow for the snow plows
While many employees have been working from home since March, he called on the estimated eight million residents to avoid non-essential travel and closed, including cabins set up on sidewalks by many restaurants, in order to continue serving in exterior despite restrictions related to Covid-19.
The anti-Covid-19 vaccination centers, which operate only by appointment – in great demand for lack of sufficient vaccines – were also closed until Tuesday included. ” At this rate of snowfall, snowplows can’t keep up New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo warned.
Most commuter trains serving New York and skytrain sections were scheduled to close in the afternoon. ” If you are not an “essential” worker, you should not be outside The governor added, warning motorists that they risked getting stuck on impassable roads.
Shooting because of the clearing
Almost all flights to or from the three airports serving the area, John F. Kennedy, La Guardia and Newark, have been canceled. In Boston, where snowfall was expected in the late afternoon, half of the flights scheduled to take off were canceled. Across the country, more than 1,600 flights were canceled Monday at midday.
No serious accident in the metropolitan areas concerned was immediately reported. But in the suburb of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, a couple in their fifties was shot dead by their neighbor after ” an altercation regarding snow removal In front of their house, said Dale Binker, police chief of Plains Township. The shooter took his own life as police arrived to arrest him, he added.
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