Residents and emergency workers across the Northeast began working from early in the morning Sunday to try to clear roads and sidewalks after a blizzard dumped as much as 40 inches of snow with hurricane force winds. At least 11 deaths in the United States were being attributed to the snowstorm, according to the Associated Press. By early Sunday, the number of customers without electricity had been cut by almost half to around 350,000 across nine states, with Massachusetts bearing the brunt of the outages. Travel bans that had been issued in Connecticut and Massachusetts were lifted, although many roads in both states remained dangerous, reports Reuters.
President Obama signed an emergency declaration for Connecticut Sunday, meaning that federal assistance for things like snow removal and power generation should be forthcoming. The assistance doesn’t provide for federal disaster funding, which would be a later step, points out the Hartford Courant. In several areas of Connecticut, where “some streets resembled ski slopes,” according to the New York Times, and New Hampshire the amount of snow ranked as the second-highest on record after the Great Blizzard of 1888. In Boston, the 24.9 inches ranked as the fifth highest snowfall on record. For its part, New York “dodged a bullet,” as Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. The 11 inches that fell on Central Park weren’t enough to break the Top 10 list, points out the AP.
More than 6,000 flights were canceled in the region since Friday but by Sunday, New York’s major airports and Boston’s Logan International Airport were all open for business, reports USA Today.
