New York: Airlines are suspending New York and Boston service after scrubbing about 4,000 flights because of a winter storm threatening the northeastern US with heavy snowfall and high winds.
Carriers halting flights included Delta Air Lines Inc., United Continental Holdings Inc., American Airlines and JetBlue Airways Corp. All four have hubs or bases in New York, the busiest US aviation market, and plan to resume operations as early as tomorrow afternoon.
The storm, already pelting New York with light snow and rain, may cause more than 100,000 power outages in a region still recovering from flooding and mass blackouts during Hurricane Sandy in October. Possible accumulation of 1 foot in New York City to 2 feet in Boston has interrupted passenger rail as well as air service, forcing travelers to reschedule.
"I figured it was better to have a sure thing," said 36- year-old Tiffany West, a New Yorker who delayed her departure for a Colorado skip trip from Saturday to Sunday. "I'm missing a day of vacation, but one day isn't going to kill me."
As much as 51 centimeters of snow may fall across eastern Long Island and Connecticut beginning tonight, as temperatures drop, the National Weather Service said. Winds are expected to gust 97 kilometers per hour or more across a large part of the Northeast at the height of the storm, the weather service said.
Blizzard warnings stretch from the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia into the US, from Maine to Newark, New Jersey, according to the weather agencies in both countries.
JetBlue Schedule
"We will continue to monitor and adjust our operations as needed," said Mateo Lleras, a JetBlue spokesman. New York and Boston are home to some of JetBlue's largest operations, and both are in the path of the storm.
The tally of scrapped flights was provided by FlightAware.com, a Houston-based company that tracks flight data and cancellations. The figure probably will rise as carriers reassess their schedules when the storm moves through.
Among the airports most affected are Logan International in Boston, Newark Liberty International in New Jersey, John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia in New York, and O'Hare International in Chicago, according to the airlines and FlightAware.
Repositioned Planes
"It will be OK," said West, who works for the World Economic Forum and is flying on United. "Now I have Saturday. I can just relax and have fun, rather than waiting at the airport when all the flights are going to get canceled."
Pre-emptive groundings allow airlines to reposition aircraft ahead of foul weather, keeping planes and people out of harm's way and enabling carriers to restore service more quickly once flying conditions improve.
United, Delta and American, the three biggest carriers in the U.S., joined competitors in issuing travel waivers letting passengers change flights in the region without a penalty.
"We are doing all we can to accommodate our customers," Kent Powell, an American spokesman, said. "We've added extra flights out of the areas most directly impacted by the storm and will look to fly additional flights into these cities as weather conditions improve."
Blizzard
A blizzard blew into the northeastern United States on Friday, bringing whiteout conditions to some parts of New England and threatening to drop record amounts of snow around Boston.
Authorities scrambled to prepare for the storm, which had already touched off a massive traffic pile-up in southern Maine and prompted organizers of the nation's sledding championship in Maine to postpone a race scheduled for Saturday, fearing too much snow for the competition.
From New York to Maine, the storm began gently, dropping a light dusting of snow, but officials urged residents to stay home, rather than risk getting stuck in deep drifts when the storm kicks up later Friday afternoon.
Even in its early stages, the storm created some panic. Drivers lined up at gas stations to top off their tanks, grocery stores were swamped as shoppers stocked up on bread and milk, and travelers were forced to confront flight delays and cancellations.
The early edge of the storm led to a 19-vehicle pile-up in southern Maine, snarling traffic on a major interstate highway north of Portland. No major injuries were reported.
"It was close to whiteout conditions, it's sort of a precursor of what's coming later," said Stephen McCausland, a spokesman for the Maine State Police.
Officials across the region closed schools and more than 3,000 flights were canceled. Several thousand customers lost power in New Jersey and points south, though officials warned the number was likely to rise as the snowfall got heavier and winds picked up.
Governors and mayors ordered nonessential government workers to stay home, urged private employers to do the same, told people to prepare for power outages and encouraged them to check on elderly or disabled neighbors.
The light snow falling across much of New England on Friday morning was a taste of the weather to come, said Jerry Paul, senior meteorologist with Weather Insight. "That's going to be gradually building today as time goes on," Paul said.
A wide swath of New England, including northeastern Connecticut, Providence, Rhode Island, and the Boston area, will likely see 60 centimeters to 76 centimeters of snow, with some areas seeing more than one meter by the time the storm ends on Saturday morning, Paul added.
At the storm's peak, winds could gust up to 105 kilometers per hour, he said. Boston's record snowfall, 70.1 cm, came in 2003.
Cheering on storm
Organizers of the country's championship sledding race, that had been scheduled to get underway in Camden, Maine, on Saturday, postponed the event by one day. "As soon as the weather clears on Saturday and it is safe, the toboggan committee will be out at Tobagganville cleaning up the chute as quickly as they can," said Holly Edwards, chairman of the US National Toboggan Championships. "It needs to be shoveled out by hand."
Some 400 teams were registered for the race, which features costumed sledders on a 121 meter chute. After two years of very little snow across the region, people whose livelihoods depend on skiers and snowmobilers cheered on the storm. "It affects restaurants, lodgings, everything if those people aren't up here to play," said Scott Senecal, manager of the VIP Discount Auto Center in Littleton, New Hampshire, in the White Mountains. "All those people that come up here they're going to have flat tires, batteries that die ... Cold weather causes people to have to spend money whether they wanted to or not."
Fuel worries
In New York City, still not fully recovered from the effects of October's devastating Hurricane Sandy, officials said they had 1,800 Sanitation Department trucks equipped with snow plows ready to be deployed.
Motorists, mindful of the severe fuel disruptions after Sandy, rushed to buy gasoline, leading to shortages in New York City. A Reuters photographer reported at least three service stations had run out of gas in the borough of Queens on Friday morning, with long lines formed at others.
Sandy knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes, taking gasoline stations out of service, and damaged port facilities, exacerbating the shortages by preventing operable stations from refueling.
"We've seen some lines at stations in the southern part of the state, ahead of the storm, which may actually help prevent problems after the storm," said Ralph Bombardiere, executive director of the New York State Association of Service Stations and Repair Shops. "I'm not expecting anything like the vast power outages and problems we had with Sandy."
Life was not any easier for those who planned to fly. More than 3,000 flights were canceled on Friday, with close to 1,000 planned cancellations for Saturday, according to the website FlightAware.com. The hardest-hit airports were in the New York City area, Boston and Toronto.
Major Boston financial companies, including State Street Corp and Fidelity Investments, said many employees worked from home on Friday rather than risk traveling.
