PHILADELPHIA: Another snowy, blowy nor’easter threatened a new round of power outages as it swirled ashore early Wednesday, causing officials to close schools and city offices and raising concerns for utility customers still trying to bounce back from an earlier storm.
The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning that stretched from eastern Pennsylvania to most of New England, from late Tuesday night into Thursday morning. By Thursday evening, it said, snow accumulations could easily surpass a foot in areas west of the I-95 corridor.
Heavy, wet snow and gusting winds could take down trees already weakened from last week’s storm and snap power lines, adding to stress for customers who have gone days without power.
Utility workers took advantage of milder temperatures and sunshine Tuesday in their scramble to restore electricity to thousands of customers around the Northeast.
The outages turned to outrage for a New Jersey man whose home had been without electricity since Friday. Robert Winter, 63, threatened to kidnap a utility company employee and blow up a substation, according to police in Vernon. He was charged with making terroristic threats.
More than a foot of snow is expected for some interior areas, the weather service said. Pennsylvania’s Poconos Mountains and parts of western Massachusetts could see up to 45cm.
Damaging winds are forecast with gusts of up to 60 mph on Cape Cod, 45 mph at the Jersey shore and 30 mph around suburban Philadelphia.
Depending on the storm’s track, communities along the Interstate 95 corridor could see heavy rain, heavy snow or a mix of both.
Transportation departments in Philadelphia and Boston loaded up salt trucks and treated roads Tuesday, and some airlines waived ticket change fees for airports in the storm’s projected path, such as Newark, Philadelphia, Boston and New York’s JFK.
Amtrak cancelled some train service Wednesday, and regional rail trains in Philadelphia will be operating on a weekend schedule.
School districts and municipal operations around Pennsylvania and Connecticut said they would close for the day. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf declared states of emergency.
The National Weather Service urged people to stay off the roads to allow emergency and road crews to do their jobs. Some areas will get as much as 5 to 7cm of snow an hour. Officials advised homeowners to be careful while shovelling, saying the weight of it has been known to cause heart attacks.
A slight consolation is that the storm is not expected to bring the coastal flooding like the one last week. Some New England and New Jersey communities are still feeling the effects of that storm.
New York and surrounding states were gearing up for a second winter storm within a week on Wednesday, with less wind but more snow predicted this time around as thousands remain without power from the last nor’easter.
Between 15 and 30cm of snow are forecast for New York City and the surrounding suburbs in New Jersey and Connecticut through to Thursday morning, with wind gusts creating “near-white out conditions” for commuters, the National Weather Service said on Tuesday.
The storm will spread west into Pennsylvania and up past Boston into New England where some locations may get as much as 60cm of snow. Snowfall may turn to wintry rain in some areas, depending on how much of the storm stays out at sea.
This week’s storm is not forecast to have the hurricane-strength winds whipped up at times by the storm last week, but forecasters say strong gusts of 96.56 kmph and accumulated snow will still be sufficient to knock down more power lines.
Some 250,000 homes and businesses in the region were still without power on Tuesday after the previous nor’easter.
The governors of New Jersey and Pennsylvania declared states of emergency, which gives them access to support from the US government if needed. New Jersey’s Department of Health warned of treacherous driving conditions.
NYC Emergency Management said the city had 234,000 tons of rock salt on hand and was deploying 693 salt spreaders. City officials advised residents to avoid roads and stick to mass transit instead.
Amtrak cancelled some of its Wednesday trains between Washington and Boston as well as some services in Pennsylvania, New York state and other areas of the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States.
