North-eastern US digs out from record snowstorm

ROAD crews scrambled to clear highways for commuters yesterday and thousands of travellers stranded at airports still waited to get home as the north-eastern states dug out from a record-breaking storm that dumped 60cm or more of snow.

Hundreds of schools cancelled Monday classes from West Virginia to Massachusetts. Utility crews worked to restore power to thousands of homes and businesses blacked out when wind gusting to 50mph knocked down power lines.

The weekend storm blanketed the Eastern Seaboard and Appalachians from western North Carolina to Maine, dropping 68cm of snow in New York’s Central Park - the heaviest since records began in 1869, the National Weather Service said. The old record was 67cm in December 1947.

Fairfield, Connecticut got 76.7cm of snow and Rahway, New Jersey had 69cm, according to unofficial observations reported to the weather service.

Just west of Philadelphia, 53cm of snow was recorded in West Caln Township; the average snowfall for an entire winter in Philadelphia is about 53cm.

All three major New York-area airports - Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark - had reopened with limited service by yesterday morning after hundreds of flights were cancelled on Sunday.

A Turkish Airlines flight skidded off a runway at Kennedy when it landed late on Sunday but none of the 198 passengers was injured, according to Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.