A powerful storm brought high winds and heavy rain that turned into snow in parts of the state on Friday, knocking out power for tens of thousands of customers and may have contributed to the death of a person on the Merritt Parkway in Stamford when a tree fell on a vehicle, according to state police. By Saturday afternoon, airports from Washington DC to Boston were still reporting dozens of delays and cancellations. A man and a 6-year-old boy were killed in different parts of Virginia, while an 11-year-old boy in NY state and a man in Rhode Island, both died.
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At least five people died in the storm, all killed by falling trees, authorities said. About a third of those flights were at LaGuardia Airport, the East Coast’s primary transportation hub.
According to tracking service FlightAware.com, more than a quarter of flights from New York’s three major airports and Boston’s airport was canceled on Friday, Reuters reported.
Winds at Virginia’s Dulles Airport even caused air traffic controllers to evacuate the control tower, the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement, though they have since returned. “This is a LIFE & DEATH situation for those living along the coast”, the National Weather Service in Boston said in a tweet. “Pilots were on the verge of throwing up”. Passenger railroad Amtrak said it was suspending the southbound service out of Washington to Boston, until at least Saturday morning, due to downed trees on the track, a report said. Shaffer lost her appliances in the last storm and expected another pounding. The storm will then move to the central USA and bring more snow to the Northern Plains and Upper Midwest, where locally over 6 inches of snow is possible on Monday.
Police struggled to rescue people trapped in vehicles submerged in floodwaters, which made roads impassable and auto parks turned into small ponds. “Our house is lifted so, like, nothing came into our first floor but our whole basement is probably 6 feet under water”.
Quincy residents who were rescued from inundated homes told CNN they’d never seen anything like this weekend’s flooding.
Boston Harbor is being watched closely as tonight’s high tide approaches.
With the storm moving slowly out to sea, there could be more coastal flooding from Virginia to ME during the high-tide cycles Saturday. But midnight’s tide was 13.87 feet, almost a foot lower, according to the Boston Globe.
A strong storm system riding a frontal boundary is moving through the western US on Saturday morning. Nantucket Harbor, in particular, may see record water levels, potentially exceeding those experienced during the October 1991 ‘Perfect Storm.’ Coastal communities should continue to message to residents to evacuate areas at risk for flooding. The airport in Northern Virginia has runways that are more closely aligned with the gusty winds that were kicked up Friday by the nor’easter.
A stunning video from space shows a winter storm – also known as a “bomb cyclone” – slamming into the northeast United States today (March 2). He said forecasters were monitoring what could become another storm Wednesday into Thursday, less than two weeks before spring officially begins.
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He said the order would “help Virginia mitigate any damage caused by high winds”. Cleve Wootson is a general assignment reporter for The Washington Post.
