NEW YORK (NewsNation Now) — A huge swath of the northeastern U.S. is digging out from under a massive winter storm. The Northeast was blanketed by the first major storm of the season, which buried parts of upstate New York under more than 3 feet of snow, also broke records in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Officials report at least 6 fatalities as a result of accidents along the storm’s path.
Thousands of plows and salt trucks were deployed before the severe weather hit. Many will stay on the road through Friday.
“We’re moving out of this,” said New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, “but we’re not out of it yet, so please be careful.”
In eastern New York, where more than 2 feet of snow was measured Thursday morning in suburban towns near Albany, numerous disabled cars were reported along Interstate 87. State police said a snowmobiler was struck and killed by a tractor-trailer on I-787 in downtown Albany early Monday.
“It was a very difficult, fast storm and it dropped an unbelievable amount of snow,” Tom Coppola, highway superintendent in charge of maintaining 100 miles of roads in the Albany suburb of Glenville, said Thursday morning. “It’s to the point where we’re having trouble pushing it with our plows.”
The storm dropped 30 inches on Glenville between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. Thursday, leaving a silent scene of snow-clad trees, buried cars and heavily laden roofs when the sun peeked through at noon.
“The amount of snow we saw in the last 24 hours was the most we’ve seen since January 2016,” said New York Mayor Bill De Blasio. “So, it’s really been years since we’ve seen this kind of challenge.”
A more extreme challenge lies northwest of Manhattan. Binghamton, N.Y. is reporting 41 inches of snow, where the National Weather Service said the storm sets a new two-day snowfall record, eclipsing the previous record of 35.3 inches in March 2017.
In Broome County, where the regional center of Binghamton got a record 42 inches of snow, County Executive Jason Garnar said snow fell at a rate of 4 to 5 inches per hour.
“This is the fastest rate of snowfall I’ve ever encountered,” he said.
In Knox, New York, a 12-year-old girl was hospitalized after being buried by a snowplow while playing outside.
In Ithaca, it took Fred Cullin, 23, more than an hour and a half to dig out of his steep, lakeside driveway that was packed with nearly 3 feet of snow piled up by plows. “It was pretty crazy,” Cullin said. “Shoveling uphill, on ice, was definitely interesting.”
“If you do not have to be on the roads, please don’t travel,” said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. He said there were more than 9,000 power outages, 600 accidents and two fatalities by midmorning Thursday.
Much of the Pennsylvania’s western and central regions saw accumulations in the double digits.
Twitter user Lucy & Ruby Lakies shared a video shows vehicles buried in deep snow on Thursday in Sayre, a city in northern Pennsylvania. The National Weather Service said between 31 and 33 inches of snow were reported in Sayre by Thursday morning.
“Williamsport Regional Airport made history,” the National Weather Service in State College said, reporting 24.7 inches of snow. Forecasters said that was the most snow from a single storm on record, breaking the previous record of 24.1 inches set there in January 1964.
A crash in the state killed two people and involved dozens of vehicles on a major highway Wednesday afternoon, police said, while issuing a reminder to only travel if “absolutely necessary.”
Boston had more than 9 inches of snow early Thursday morning, breaking the previous record for the date of 6.4 inches in 2013. In Boston’s Seaport neighborhood, the streets were mostly empty except for an army of workers snowblowing sidewalks in front of luxury apartment buildings, stores and office towers.
“It’s been a while since we have had this,” said Mark Pusung, a 33-year-old Seaport resident walking his Shar-Pei dog Muffin. “I wanted my dog to experience it because he could run around.”
Xicheng Cai, 28, a consultant who lives and works in Seaport, was decked out in what he called his full polar gear including boots, wind-proof pants and ski goggles. “Wonderful,” he said of the snow. “This is what Christmas should look like.”
Massachusetts’ transportation chief said it may take longer than usual to clear snow-clogged highways and streets because the coronavirus pandemic has knocked one in 10 plow drivers out of action.
In New Hampshire, there were at least 50 crashes and disabled vehicles due to poor road conditions as of Thursday morning. Officials did not say if there were any major injuries or deaths.
In Virginia, the salvo of snow, sleet and freezing rain knocked out power to several thousand homes and businesses by Wednesday afternoon. The state police said that as of 3 p.m., troopers had responded to approximately 200 crashes, including a wreck on Interstate 81 that killed a North Carolina man.
The National Weather Service warned mid-Atlantic states should prepare for freezing rain and ice. Even North Carolina’s Outer Banks could experience strong winds and coastal flooding, and possibly even severe thunderstorms and some tornadoes, warned NWS.
The pandemic added new complexities to officials’ preparations — deciding whether to close testing sites, figuring out how to handle plowing amid outdoor dining platforms in New York City streets, redefining school snow days to mean another day of learning from home, and more.
“Our theme today ought to be, ‘If it’s not one thing, it’s another,’” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said as he gave residents storm guidance that’s new this year — mask up if you help your neighbors shovel.
Still, officials said they didn’t expect the winter blast to disrupt vaccine distribution, which began Monday for frontline health care workers, the first group of Americans to get the shots. The first 3 million shots are being strictly limited to those workers and to nursing home residents.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Wednesday that the government is tracking the vaccine shipments precisely, has staffers already in place to receive them and believes the companies transporting them can navigate the storm.
The need for vaccines prompted New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy to exempt vaccine delivery trucks from a storm-related prohibition on commercial traffic on some highways. The state was anticipating more than two dozen vaccine deliveries in the next day or two. Murphy declared a state of emergency of Wednesday in response to the winter storm.
The overnight snowfall eclipsed the entire amount recorded for all of last winter in New York City, where 6.5 inches of snow covered Central Park — much less than the initial predictions of up to 12 inches. Snowplows were careful to avoid damaging outdoor dining spaces erected for the pandemic at Manhattan restaurants, where dining was to resume Thursday night.
In a light-hearted moment at a daily briefing by New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, the official in charge of snow removal, Edward Grayson, cautioned, “It’s not a night to wear your good shoes.”
The National Weather Service says the effects of the storm will linger, with near-freezing temperatures expected for the next few days.
The Associated Press’ reporters Mary Esch, Thalia Beaty, Tom Hays, Sophia Tulp, Bill Kole and Michael Casey contributed to this report