The gigantic snowstorm this week has cities working overtime to clear towering heaps. In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani got creative: in addition to spreading 143 million pounds (65 million kilograms) of salt by Tuesday evening, the city signed up at least 3,500 people as emergency shovelers, working $30-per-hour shifts to clear snow from bus stops and streets.
Power had returned for many of the hundreds of thousands who had lost electricity in Massachusetts, New Jersey, Delaware and Rhode Island. But nearly 160,000 customers in Massachusetts were still without power early Wednesday.
In Newport, Rhode Island, Joseph Boutros, a 21-year-old Salve Regina University student, was pronounced dead of carbon monoxide poisoning after being found unconscious inside a vehicle covered in snow Monday night, a city police statement said.
Some sidewalks are impassable for people with disabilities
But there was plenty more work left to do. Parts of the city have people feeling like they're marooned on islands, according to Jeff Peters, spokesperson for the Center for Independence of the Disabled, New York.
“You’ll find a portion of a sidewalk that is clear, and then there’s maybe a 6-inch (15-centimeter) pathway that can only be walked with one foot in front of the other and no room for a stroller, rollator, walker or crutches,” Peters said. “Then you get to the corner and not only is it unshoveled, but you have basically a glacier at the end of it.”
Tina Guenette, who uses a motorized wheelchair, had to shovel out her yard this week after more than 33 inches (84 centimeters) fell in Harrisville, Rhode Island, a town about 17 miles (27 kilometers) northwest of Providence.
“I really have no choice if my service dog wants to go outside,” Guenette said. Harrisville's volunteer snow-shoveling program hasn't had volunteers for years, she said.
The storm unleashed massive amounts of snow
Monday’s storm blanketed the region with snow, canceled flights, disrupted transit and downed power lines. More than 3 feet (0.9 meters) fell in Rhode Island — surpassing snow totals from the historic Blizzard of 1978 that struck the Northeast, the weather service said.
Meteorologist Ryan Maue, former chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, crunched the numbers, which show that if all the snow that fell from Maryland to Maine fell just on Manhattan, it would have towered over a mile high.
In New York City, workers will use massive basins of warm water where large amounts of snow and ice will be dumped, acting Sanitation Commissioner Javier Lojan said. They helped melt 23 million pounds (11.5 metric tons) of snow during last month’s storm.
In snowbound Providence, Rhode Island, the city is taking snow to five locations, according to Josh Estrella, communications director for the city government. The challenge is so great that additional dumping grounds may be added, Estrella said.
NYC schools are returning to normal. Not so much in Rhode Island and parts of Massachusetts
Some large school districts moved back to in-person classes on Wednesday, including Philadelphia, which had switched to online learning during the first two days of the week. Schools reopened in Boston. They had been closed since last week for the winter vacation break. But in hardest-hit Rhode Island, Providence schools were closed for a third snow as the district moved into “virtual learning” on Wednesday.
In New York City, it's another regular school day for more than 900,000 students in the nation’s largest public school system, but many students and their caregivers had to scramble over mountainous snow banks and dodge salt spreaders during the morning drop-off.
Thousands of flights in and out of the U.S. have been canceled in recent days. By Wednesday, the disruptions seemed to be subsiding, with nearly 200 grounded, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. Rhode Island's T.F. Green International Airport reopened Tuesday. Some flights departed Wednesday, while others were canceled.
When Jamie Meyers' flight landed in New York from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Tuesday evening, the cabin full of relieved passengers burst into applause. The Manhattan resident was supposed to arrive home Sunday but faced a cancellation and significant delay.
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Golden reported from Seattle and Boone reported from Boise, Idaho. Associated Press writers Jennifer Peltz, Michael R. Sisak and Philip Marcelo in New York; Mike Catalini in Morrisville, Pennsylvania; Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; and Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu contributed.