Snow storm wreaks havoc across US
A snow plow blows snow in New York as a blizzard slammed into the northeastern part of the United States. Photograph: Keith Bedford/Reuters
A mammoth snow storm with hurricane-force winds hammered the northeastern United States yesterday, cutting power to 700,000 homes and businesses, shutting down travel and leaving at least nine people dead.
The storm that stretched from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic dumped more than 90cm of snow across the Northeast, the US national weather service said.
Coastal blizzard and flood warnings were in effect, but Massachusetts and Connecticut lifted vehicle travel bans as the storm slowly moved eastward yesterday evening.
Stratford, Connecticut, mayor John Harkins said he had never seen such a heavy snowfall, with rates reaching 15cm an hour. "Even the plows are getting stuck," Mr Harkins told local WTNH television.
The storm centered its fury on Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts, with the highest snowfall total, 102cm, in Hamden, Connecticut.
About 2,200 flights were canceled yesterday, for a total of more than 5,800 over the past two days, according to FlightAware, which tracks airline delays. A few hundred additional cancellations are possible for today, it said.
Boston's Logan International Airport and Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Connecticut, were shut down. Logan, hit by nearly 56cm of snow, was expected to reopen at least partly later yesterday.
The storm dumped 74cm of snow on Portland, Maine, breaking a 1979 record, the weather service said. Winds gusted to 134km per hour at Cuttyhunk, New York, and brought down trees across the region.
The storm contributed to at least five deaths in Connecticut, according to governor Dannel Malloy and police.
An 80-year-old woman was killed by a hit-and-run driver while clearing her driveway, and a 40-year-old man collapsed while shoveling snow. One man, 73, slipped outside his home and was found dead yesterday, Mr Malloy said.
A 53-year-old Bridgeport man was found dead in the snow Saturday morning outside his home, and a 49-year-old man died while shoveling snow in Shelton, police said.
Two people died of carbon monoxide poisoning in separate incidents in Boston. One of the victims was an 11-year-old boy who was overcome by fumes as he sat in an idling car to keep warm, a fire official said. The other victim was a man in his early 20s who was found unresponsive in his car, police said.
In Poughkeepsie, New York, a man in his 70s was struck and killed on a snowy roadway, local media reported. A 23-year-old man was killed in Germantown, New York, when the tractor he was using to plow his driveway rolled down an embankment, according to local media.
A 30-year-old motorist in New Hampshire died when his car went off the road, but the man's health might have been a factor in the accident, state authorities said.
