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Millions of people in New York City and a large swath of the northeastern U.S. were stuck at home under road travel bans and blizzard warnings Monday as heavy snow and strong winds intensified, creating whiteout conditions in the densely populated region.
Snow fell at a rate of 2 to 3 inches (5 to 7.6 centimeters) an hour early Monday from New York through Massachusetts. Some areas have gotten well over a foot (30 centimeters) of snow since Sunday, along with wind gusts of over 30 mph (48 kph) and low visibility.
In New York, Long Island MacArthur Airport reported 22.5 inches (57 centimeters) of snow as of Monday morning. Parts of New York City had accumulations in the mid- to high teens, with Coney Island getting 16 inches (40.6 centimeters). Freehold, New Jersey, had 22 inches (55.8 centimeters). New London, Connecticut, and North Kingstown, Rhode Island, both got 17 inches of snow (43 centimeters).
The National Weather Service called travel conditions “nearly impossible.”
Blizzard warnings stretched from Maryland to Maine. Cellphones across New York City received wailing push alerts Sunday night announcing a ban on non-emergency travel
on all streets through noon Monday because of “dangerous blizzard conditions.” Rhode Island and New Jersey implemented similar restrictions.
More than 5,000 flights in and out of the United States were canceled for Monday, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. Most were canceled in New York, New Jersey and Boston.
Public transit was suspended in some areas. Even DoorDash announced it was suspending deliveries in New York City overnight.
The storm caused power outages that left more than 400,000 customers in the dark along the East Coast early Monday, including about 146,000 customers in Massachusetts and 123,000 customers in New Jersey, according to PowerOutage.us, which tracks outages nationwide.
