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Government, schools remain closed after historic blizzard Government, schools remain closed after historic blizzard
(about 3 hours later)
The Washington region on Monday morning lurched fitfully from under one of the heaviest snowfalls in memory, with federal and local governments closed, the Metro system offering severely limited service and authorities warning that it could take days for the plows to reach some residential streets. Metro began severely limited service Monday and snow plows began penetrating some residential streets as the novelty of a monumental storm began to wear off in a region where many were eager to get back to work and school.
Metro, which records more than 730,000 rail trips on an average weekday, resumed service on a fraction of its operations — partial service on three underground rail lines and 22 bus routes — after being shut down for the weekend by the storm. Metro said Monday morning that beginning at 11 a.m. it was restorting aboveground service on the Red Line between Union Station and Glemont, between Ballston and New Carrollton on the Orange Line, and between Fort Totten and Branch Avenue on the Green Line. That’s in addition to the limited service Metro announced Sunday.
Several area roads in the District, Maryland and Virginia were closed Monday morning because of icy road conditions, snow removal or water main breaks. With federal, states and local governments shut down, as well as school systems and universities, authorities urged drivers who had been snowbound since Friday to avoid unnecessary trips so that plows could continue their work.
The work of snow crews was complicated by the fact that the more than two feet of snow that fell in many places could not be easily shoved aside. Much of it had to be hauled off to an open space, creating mountains of snow that would take weeks or months to melt away.
Several roads in the District, Maryland and Virginia were closed Monday morning because of icy conditions, snow removal or water main breaks.
[Live updates on Monday as people try to dig out][Live updates on Monday as people try to dig out]
Officials advised drivers to stay off the road and for pedestrians to not walk in the road, even if sidewalks are blocked with snow. One of the biggest problems is that many roads with several lanes are blocked in part because of snow piles. Hope for a big thaw was dimmed by the forecast, which suggested a touch of rain or snow Tuesday and Wednesday that could create icy conditions, a the possibility of more snow later in the week. Some school districts announced they would not open Tuesday.
Virtually all school systems and colleges in the region were closed Monday. The federal government and state and county governments also said they would be closed Monday. Metro, which records more than 730,000 rail trips on an average weekday, resumed service on a fraction of its operations — partial service on three underground rail lines and 22 bus routes — after being shut down for the weekend by the storm.
Authorities urged drivers to stay off the roads and pedestrians to stay out of the streets. They said that digging out from a storm that lasted almost 36 hours and delivered more than two feet of snow in some areas will hobble movement well into the workweek. Metro spokesman Dan Stessel said passenger traffic Monday morning on the partially reopened subway was “extremely light,” based on reports from station managers. Because the rail system was operating fare-free, he said, it was not possible for Metro to provide accurate ridership numbers.
In addition to paralyzing the region, the storm brought airplane traffic in and out of the region’s three major airports to a virtual halt. Reagan National and Dulles International airports said late Sunday that their runways had been cleared of snow to allow limited operations to resume Monday, but flights weren’t expected to return to normal for days, causing the U.S. House of Representatives to cancel an abbreviated session that was planned from Monday to Wednesday. Limited service opened at 7 a.m. on the Red, Orange and Green lines. The Orange Line was running between the Ballston and Eastern Market stations, the Red Line was running between Medical Center and Union Station, and the Green Line ran between Fort Totten and Anacostia.
[D.C. region gets what it pays for when it comes to snow removal]
Stessel said Metro is “working on getting more parts of the rail system open as the day goes along.” He said a “massive” snow-removal and de-icing effort is continuing, involving “hundreds and hundreds” of Metro workers and contractor employees.
“We’re not going to wait to reopen the whole above-ground system in one fell swoop,” Stessel said. “We’ll open segments of the lines as soon as we’re able.”
As for single-tracking on the Orange Line and elsewhere in Metro’s underground-only rail operation, Stessel said that “was part of the plan all along,” and it is the reason why the wait-times between trains were set at 20 to 25 minutes Monday morning, far longer than during normal rush hours.
The continuing danger posed by the snow sent seven people to the hospital in Fairfax with carbon monoxide poisoning Sunday night after the exhaust vents inside their apartment building furnace rooms became clogged with snow.
“This is a huge concern,” said Fairfax County fire department Captain Randy Bittinger. “We certainly don’t want people to go out in their roofs, but they should make sure those vents are also clear.”
[This week’s forecast: Two more chances of rain or snow][This week’s forecast: Two more chances of rain or snow]
The last of the snow fell in the region around 11:45 p.m. Saturday. Totals ranged from 10 inches to 35 inches and more, with the heaviest accumulation to the north and west of the city, outside the Capital Beltway. The National Zoo in Northwest Washington got 22.4 inches; Hyattsville, in Prince George’s County, got 25 inches; 30 inches fell in Manassas; and Round Hill, in Loudoun County, got three feet. At least nine people in Maryland, Virginia and the District have died in incidents related to the blizzard, according to new figures released Monday. Several more deaths are being investigated.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) asked people to be patient, saying that “getting back to business as usual will take time.” Virginia State Police said six deaths are linked to the storm – one traffic fatality in Chesapeake, and five due to hypothermia in the city of Hampton and the counties of Wise, Charles City, Gloucester and Henry.
Gregory Johnson of the Maryland State Highway Administration said the state’s primary roadways will be cleared by Monday morning. The secondary roads will still be snow-covered, “with a lot of work to be done.” Not included in this list is a death of a man on Sunday in Leesburg who police said suffered an apparent heart attack while walking home from a store through waist high snow. A Virginia State police spokesman said this death is among several awaiting rulings from the medical examiner’s office, so the number could climb.
“I’m pleased with the progress that we’ve made,” said Hogan, reiterating his appeal for drivers to stay off the roads. “We’ve been lucky with no fatalities. We want to keep it that way.” In Maryland, two deaths have been confirmed by authorities as snow-related. A man in his 60s died Saturday after shoveling snow in Fort Washington, in Prince George’s County, and a 49-year-old man died in Abingdon, Md., northeast of Baltimore, also while shoveling snow.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) and the state’s transportation secretary, Aubrey Layne, toured the hardest-hit areas by helicopter Sunday. McAuliffe said Saturday that snow removal cost the commonwealth $2 million to $3 million per hour.
“It’s going to be one of the largest snow-removal efforts that we’ve had in Northern Virginia — one of the most expensive — because some of it’s so high,” Layne said. “It’s a lot of snow. It’s just a heck of a lot of snow.”
[What public transportation is running today and when][What public transportation is running today and when]
In the District, police said they would ticket and tow the cars of drivers who venture out and get stuck. Police in Maryland are investigating two other possibly storm-related deaths. The body of a man described by police as homeless was found Sunday in Laurel, Md., in a snow bank off U.S. 1, and a woman was found earlier that day lying on a street in Hampstead, Md., about 30 miles northwest of Maryland.
“If you come out, you get yourself stuck on one of our streets, I have to tell you: We will aggressively ticket you, and tow your vehicle,” D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said Sunday. “We want to have tomorrow to keep cars off the road so we can continue to clear those major arterials.” There was one storm death reported in the District, that of an 82-year-old man who D.C. fire officials said died Sunday after shoveling snow on a residential street in Northeast Washington.
Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said the tickets could cost as much as $750, and she warned that people also could be fined for walking in the street. Some flights resumed Monday at the region’s three major airports after they were largely shut down over the weekend. But passengers were encouraged to check to see whether their fights were among them before heading to the airport.
Nearly half of flights originating at Dulles International Airport had been canceled Monday morning. More than a quarter of originating flights were canceled at Reagan National Airport. The Boston Celtics re-routed their travel plans and landed at Baltimore-Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport Sunday for their game against the Washington Wizards that’s scheduled for 7 p.m. Monday.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) said Saturday that snow removal cost the commonwealth $2 million to $3 million per hour.
By Monday morning, Virginia road crews reopened the I-95 and I-395 express lanes and further cleared the Capital Beltway, but I-66 was still tough-going and many roads throughout the region were problematic, said the state’s chief transportation engineer.
“The interstates, they’ve been working them but its been a struggle because of the temperatures last night,” said Garrett Moore, of the Virginia Department of Transportation.
“95 are 495 are probably in the best shape… They’ve got some ramps they’re still clearing. There are still some hot spots where there’s ice and snow,” Moore said.
Crews struggled to clear stretches along I-66 overnight.
“As it got colder, and those banks froze up, it got more difficult for the loaders to do it. They kept up with the work, but their productions went down,” Moore said. “We ought to make much more progress during the day.”
Many subdivisions are still not cleared, he said
In the District, police said they would ticket and tow the cars of drivers who venture out and get stuck. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said the tickets could cost as much as $750, and she warned that people also could be fined for walking in the street.
“We’re going to have to start stepping up and being a little more aggressive about asking our public not to be out, walking in the streets,” Lanier said.“We’re going to have to start stepping up and being a little more aggressive about asking our public not to be out, walking in the streets,” Lanier said.
[The detailed analysis of how much snow fell in the region][The detailed analysis of how much snow fell in the region]
Metro opened at 7 a.m. with limited service on the Red, Orange and Green lines as follows: The Orange Line will run between the Ballston and Eastern Market stations, the Red Line will run between Medical Center and Union Station, and the Green Line will run between Fort Totten and Anacostia. “For the next 48 to 72 hours we need you to be patient with us,” said Prince George’s County Executive Rushern L. Baker (D) said Sunday. “We need at least 24 hours for us to clear the primary streets and secondary roads before we can get into the neighborhoods.”
Trains will run every 20 to 25 minutes, the agency said. Fares will not be charged.
Buses will run on what Metro is calling “lifeline service” on 22 lines only, from noon to 5 p.m., every half-hour.
D.C. officials said there was no telling precisely how long it will take to clear the snow.
“Two feet of snow is a lot to move,” Chris T. Geldart, director of the District’s Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, said Sunday. “We’re going to be in our response phase for at least 24 to 36 hours, and the recovery phase for much longer than that.”
Authorities in Prince George’s County said nearly 80 percent of the county’s main and secondary roads have been plowed.
“For the next 48 to 72 hours we need you to be patient with us,” said County Executive Rushern L. Baker (D). “We need at least 24 hours for us to clear the primary streets and secondary roads before we can get into the neighborhoods.”
The county government was closed Monday.
[The full list of what is closed today]
“I know people want to get out of your houses and move around, but we need you to stay at home as much as possible,” Baker said.“I know people want to get out of your houses and move around, but we need you to stay at home as much as possible,” Baker said.
Alexandria closed its streets to all but emergency vehicles Sunday.
“With about two feet of snow, we have had 50 percent more snow in the past 36 hours than we typically have all winter,” said Mayor Allison Silberberg (D). “The roads are still treacherous, and the roads will melt a bit each day and then refreeze each night.”
Silberberg said Alexandria had cleared virtually all its primary roads by late Sunday and that crews had shifted to secondary roads. She said residential streets would be tackled Monday or later.
Montgomery County officials said crews are focusing on plowing primary roads. After that, they will move into the 4,000 lane-miles of neighborhood roads, county spokesman Patrick Lacefield said.Montgomery County officials said crews are focusing on plowing primary roads. After that, they will move into the 4,000 lane-miles of neighborhood roads, county spokesman Patrick Lacefield said.
“Crews are working around the clock, but we are not just having to plow, we are also having to carry away” loads of snow, Lacefield said.“Crews are working around the clock, but we are not just having to plow, we are also having to carry away” loads of snow, Lacefield said.
Where to put the more than two feet of snow that accumulated in many areas was a problem for officials, businesses and homeowners alike. In a lighter snow, plowing it or shoveling it aside is relatively easy, but this was too much snow to be shoved to one side. Event when the closest roads seemed clear, some found it difficult to get where they wanted to go.
“Where are we going to put it all?” Hampton Inn manager Dorene Sapp said as she looked out from her hotel pavilion just off Leesburg Pike. “We are hoping for some melting but at this rate, I don’t know where it’s all going to go.” Mark Miller, who works for a federal contractor providing humanitarian aid in troubled spots around the world, stood patiently at a bus stop in the Petworth section of D.C. for 30 minutes, maintaining hope that the 9:30 bus would arrive because, he said, that’s what he read on Metro’s website.
Just finding a shovel to dig out cars was a problem at the Sheraton and Hyatt parking lots near Dulles International Airport. The he learned that Metro wasn’t beginning limited service until noon.
Scott Morris, a Dulles Airport police officer who stayed in a hotel rather than driving home to the Shenandoah Valley, was close to digging his car out after a grueling hour. He brought his own shovel, which another guest offered $250 to buy. [The full list of what is closed today]
“I said, ‘At this point, pal, there’s not enough money in your pocket to get this from me,’ ” Morris said. “Georgia Avenue doesn’t look impassable to me,” he said, gesturing at a mostly empty road . “I don’t know why they can’t get a bus out on the road. I understand why they wanted to shut it down; they’ve explained their reasons. But they should be able to get back into action. They’ve had all day yesterday. I’m staring to get a little impatient, I gotta say.”
That feeling spread through the Northwest Side neighborhood that, while undergoing a wave of new development that has brought in more working professionals, also has many working class residents who need to report to their hourly wage jobs or somehow find a way to put more food in their refrigerators.
Dave Weems, 66, ventured out with his walker into the unplowed side streets for a trip to a local payday loan company branch.
With his food running low, Weems has trying to collect the $80 that his brother wired over to him on Friday.
The check cashing office, sporting a sign offering money grams with “fast cash” to people in need, was closed.
“I have no money,” Weems said, who has relied on neighbors for food this weekend. “I’ve been trying to get money so I can feed myself. I’ve been trying to get something in my refrigerator since Friday.”
Yonas Kidane said his battle has been with boredom. The Reagan National Airport taxi dispatcher who arrived to Washington from Eritrea five years ago said he was initially captivated by his first-ever major snowstorm.
Now, after being shut in for three days, he’d just like life to return to normal.
“When you work, time goes by fast,” he said. “When you don’t work, it is slow. Very slow.”
[Major flooding on coastline: ‘This is worse than Sandy’][Major flooding on coastline: ‘This is worse than Sandy’]
When Ray Atkins’s neighbor, a tax judge, said he was due in court in North Carolina on Monday, the neighbors in the 1500 block of Garfield Street in Arlington went to work. Laura Sigman, her ice cleats clacking against the pavement through the snow mush, marched up a mostly cleared District street 3.4 miles from her patients.
Shovels deployed, six people cleared the three-foot-deep snow from the driveway and sidewalks so that the judge could get out. But while the judge may be able to leave his driveway now, he’s going nowhere else because the block, just off Wilson Boulevard, is packed deep with snow. “I work in the emergency room, so I gotta go,” Sigman said. “Not many cars out.”
Even before the snowfall began, Ngozi Johnson knew she’d need a strategy to deal with her daughter’s boredom from being stuck indoors. Thinking back to her own childhood — when she and her siblings would fan out across their neighborhood and help people dig out — Johnson went to Lowe’s and bought two shovels. On Sunday afternoon, with the District buried under two feet of snow, she; her daughter, 13-year-old Nandi Johnson; and her daughter’s best friend, 12-year-old Wendell Wray, hit the streets. She wasn’t supposed to work the 7 a.m. shift, but another physician who lives in Rockville, Md. couldn’t get out. And other colleagues at Children’s National Medical Center camped there all weekend.
“I thought this would probably be the best time to learn the true value of a dollar,” Ngozi Johnson said. Sigman said she probably could have driven her car, if it was dug out, but she couldn’t risk it.
[Where Snowzilla fits among D.C.’s top 10 snowstorms] “I’m from Chicago, and I thought it was better to walk because the streets are not usually plowed here,” Sigman said.
Also recognizing a fresh entrepreneurial opportunity, Noel Lemus, Marcio Cruz and Osmin Fuentes were out at 9 a.m. Sunday with snow shovels ready. But her’s was, at least on this stretch.
“We’ve been doing this for five years,” said Lemus, who said the men worked as electricians but shoveled snow on weekends as a side job. Her parents, still in Chicago, said the massive snow dump from Washington’s blizzard was impressive, warm words from a city that has been known to do a bit of scoffing, as President Obama did in 2009 when noting: “As my children pointed out, in Chicago, school is never canceled.”
Lemus said he grew up in El Salvador and then spent 18 years in Southern California before seeing snow for the first time in Washington about six years ago. Asked whether he ever thought he’d be shoveling snow, he shrugged. But after trudging past the sights of a city still socked in, including a 72-year-old mechanic struggling to break free a snow-bound 4-wheel-drive Jeep, Sigman acknowledged that her adopted city had gotten it pretty good.
“It’s just like the work in my home country,” he said. “I guess, legitimately, it’s a pretty big storm,” Sigman said.
But it doesn’t snow in El Salvador, he was reminded.
“No, but shoveling the dirt is the same.”
It was shoveling with a deadline for many people, including Brian Boxman of North Potomac.
He also wanted to be done digging out by 2:59 p.m. so he could get settled in front of his big-screen TV for the AFC Championship match between the New England Patriots and the Denver Broncos. His vision of the game, a beer and maybe nachos, kept the snow flying.
“I’m under pressure,” he said as game time neared.
Meanwhile, the number of people who died as a result of the storm increased.
A Leesburg man had a heart attack and died early Sunday morning while trudging through waist-deep snow in an attempt to go home after working at a convenience store that had stayed open through the storm, police said.
The man, whose identity has not been released, was in his 50s and collapsed around 2 a.m., police said. A resident saw him fall into the snow, called 911 and pulled the man inside a nearby home. Emergency responders were unable to revive him.
“If the gentleman had been walking home on a sunny day, he probably would be alive,” said Leesburg police Lt. Brian Rourke.
The man had tried to drive home after his shift at the convenience store, in the 700 block of Fieldstone Drive NE, but he abandoned his car after it got stuck and tried to walk the rest of the way home, Rourke said.
Virginia authorities have attributed at least four other deaths to storm-related causes, and the storm had claimed at least 19 other fatalities nationwide as of Sunday morning.
Other deaths included traffic fatalities, those from heart attacks while shoveling snow and two hypothermia deaths. One shoveling death was that of a 49-year old man from Abingdon, Md., northeast of Baltimore.