City recovering from snowstorm that dumped roughly a foot of powder on NY, NJ








REUTERS


A man operates a snow plow in New York on Saturday.



New Yorkers have started digging themselves out from the blizzard that hit the city overnight.

The snow had stopped in Manhattan by early Saturday morning, but other areas saw more than two feet of powder and significant power outages.

Some spots on eastern Long Island got as much as 30 inches.

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Totals in New Jersey ranged from 5-15 inches, with the highest snowfalls spread across the northern part of the state while other areas were spared.




The National Weather Service reports River Vale in northern Bergen County got 15 inches. West Milford, Hillsdale and Scotch Plains all got more than a foot of snow. Cedar Grove residents woke up to about 10 inches of snow Saturday morning.

Newark had been projected to get up to a foot of snow or possibly more but received about 5 or 6 inches. About 5 inches fell on Jersey City and about 6 inches fell at Newark Airport.

More than 28 inches of snow had fallen on central Connecticut by early Saturday, and areas of southeastern Massachusetts, Rhode Island and New Hampshire notched 2 feet or more of snow — with more falling.

Meanwhile, the snow total in Central Park was 11.4 inches by 8 a.m.

"We think we're in great shape. We were lucky...Looks like we've dodged a bullet," Mayor Bloomberg said at a Saturday morning press conference in Queens.

Bloomberg said all city streets will be cleared of snow by the end of Saturday and that all primary, most secondary and "60 percent" of tertiary streets have already been plowed.

Bloomberg said New York City can offer equipment and manpower if other communities need help with snow removal.

Bloomberg gave a briefing at a sanitation garage in Queens. He said the Sanitation Department has deployed 2,200 pieces of equipment and will have every street plowed by the end of the day.

New Jersey Transit resumed bus service north of Interstate 195 as of 7 a.m. Saturday, including service into New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal.

NJ Transit suspended all northern bus service Friday evening due to treacherous driving conditions.

Rail service on the Morris & Essex, Montclair-Boonton and Midtown Direct lines remains suspended from Friday but officials were taking steps to expedite the restoration of service once inspections were conducted.

More than 5,300 flights through Saturday were still cancelled, though and JFK and LaGuardia airports in New York are still closed, as is Boston's Logan Airport.

But, Newark Airport is scheduled to reopen at 8:30 a.m. Saturday after being closed overnight, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

REUTERS


A woman takes a photo of a snow man that was erected at the fountain at Lincoln Center during New York Fashion Week on Friday.



At least five deaths were being blamed on the storm, three in Canada and two in upstate New York. In southern Ontario, an 80-year-old woman collapsed while shoveling her driveway and two men were killed in car crashes. In New York, a 74-year-old man died after being struck by a car in Poughkeepsie; the driver said she lost control in the snowy conditions, police said.

A 23-year-old man in Germantown, NY has died after he went off the edge of a roadway while plowing his driveway with a farm tractor in Columbia County, state police said.

Troopers say the accident happened shortly after 9 p.m. Friday, about 35 miles south of Albany. The National Weather Service says about 7.5 inches of snow has accumulated in that area overnight. The tractor rolled down a 15-foot embankment.

The man was pronounced dead at Columbia Memorial Hospital. His name hasn't been released.

More than 650,000 people across the Northeast were without power this morning, with most of the outages occurring in New England.

New York City has suffered surprisingly few power outages during the snowstorm that raged overnight, but eastern Long Island is a different story.

Wendy Lang of National Grid says there are about 10,000 customers without electricity this morning on the island, most in hard-hit eastern Suffolk County.

She says they can get most customers back on line within 24 hours if crews can reach them.

Long Island got the heaviest snow, according to the National Weather Service, which said 30.3 inches fell on Upton and several towns topped two feet.

Con Edison spokesman Mike Clendenin says the city has just 317 customers out, 206 in Brooklyn. No outages were reported in Westchester County.

In New Jersey, the state's two largest utilities were reporting minimal outages as of Saturday morning.

Public Service Electric & Gas says it had 16 customer outages as of 5:30 a.m. Saturday. At one point 2,200 customers in Elizabeth were affected, but PSE&G says they were restored Friday night. Jersey Central Power & Light, the state's second-largest utility, reports 16 outages at 7 a.m.

It's a far cry from the 2.7 million customers left in the dark after Superstorm Sandy last October, or a similar number affected by a snowstorm in October 2011.

Forecasters said wind gusts exceeding 75 mph could cause more widespread power outages and whip the snow into fearsome drifts.

On Saturday, Connecticut Gov. Malloy ordered all roads closed until further notice, saying that stalled or abandoned vehicles will only slow the recovery process. The storm dumped more than 2 feet of snow over much of the state.

State police spokesman Lt. J. Paul Vance says drivers and even some troopers have been getting stuck on the snow-covered highways. He said a pedestrian was struck by a vehicle and killed Friday night in Prospect.

Vance said troopers are still out responding to calls but it's imperative that people stay off the roads.

In New York City, there will be delayed openings at public libraries in all five boroughs. Most will be open from noon until 5 p.m.

With Post Staff










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