NEW YORK — Millions of East Coast commuters returned to work Monday over slick roads and icy sidewalks after a weekend winter storm dumped record snowfall and interrupted Christmas shopping and travel.
Airport delays eased, and travelers stranded by canceled flights were finally getting off the ground, but there were worries that weekend problems could cause ripples that would be felt during the Christmas rush.
The storm crept up the coast on Saturday and Sunday, walloping states from the mid-Atlantic to New England, causing widespread power failures and treacherous driving conditions. The weather was blamed for at least seven deaths, and possibly nine, including a snowmobile driver who crashed head-on into a horse-drawn buggy in Pennsylvania’s Amish country.
Airports in the East that were jammed up this weekend were working their way back to normal. On Monday, the Federal Aviation Administration was reporting that nearly all major airports on the East Coast were reporting flight delays of fewer than 15 minutes.
Three major airports in the New York City area were expecting an unusually busy Christmas travel week made worse by the cancellation of 1,200 flights.
Adam Reker was at La-Guardia Airport trying to get home to Denver after his flights on Saturday and Sunday were canceled.
“Now they’re trying to make me stay until Wednesday,” he said. “It’s a nightmare.”
At Little Rock National Airport, Adams Field, about five flights were delayed Monday, but the airport had no cancellations after six flights were delayed and three canceled on Sunday, an airport spokesman said.
“You would have expected more delays, but we've really not had that many in comparison to what the weather has been,” T.J. Williams said.
Two delays Monday occurred before noon, she said. A Delta Airlines flight from Atlanta that was scheduled to arrive at 9 a.m. arrived 46 minutes late. An American Airlines flight was six minutes late.
Williams declined to predict when flights would return to normal.
“We’ve had minimal delays resulting from weather conditions in other areas,” she said. “Changing weather conditions may dictate further delays.”
At Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport at Highfill, the airport’s single daily flights to and from LaGuardia Airport were canceled Monday, a spokesman for the airport said.
Amtrak canceled some trains in the East on Monday because of the storm and warned that long-distance trains to the South and West faced substantial delays.
In addition to travel problems, power failures remained a concern Monday. More than 130,000 people were still without power in West Virginia and Virginia as of Monday morning.
The storm began wreaking misery Friday in South Florida, where it caused flooding and knocked out electricity in the Carolinas before turning to snow as it moved north.
Officials blamed the storm for at least seven deaths, and possibly two others, in Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and New York.
Meanwhile, the Washington, D.C., police chief slammed a veteran detective Monday for pulling a gun during a mass snowball fight that had been advertised on the Internet.
Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy Lanier said she watchedvideo clips from the confrontation and has no doubt the off-duty detective pulled his gun after snowballs hit his personal car during Saturday’s record snowfall.
“Let me be very clear in stating that I believe the actions of the officer were totally inappropriate!” Lanier said in a statement after the videos made the rounds on YouTube. “In no way should he have handled the situation in this manner.”
Lanier said the detective, whom she did not identify, did not deny the accusations. He is on desk duty until an investigation is complete.
Hundreds of people gathered for the snowball fight on a major street after organizers used social networks such asTwitter to advertise it.
Information for this article was contributed by Larry Neumeister, Eric Tucker, Jim Fitzgerald, Kiley Armstrong, Deepti Hajela, Ula Ilnytzky, Nafeesa Syeed and Alysia Patterson of The Associated Press, and by Noel E. Oman of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Front Section, Pages 3 on 12/22/2009