Blizzard 2015: New England Digging Out After Getting Slammed by Storm
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Kayana Szymczak/Getty Images(BOSTON) — New England is digging out Wednesday morning after receiving more than 30 inches of snow in some areas from a massive Nor’easter, which blew through with blizzard conditions.
A travel ban was lifted at midnight in Massachusetts, but authorities are urging drivers to stay off the roads as cleanup efforts continue.
Public transportation service from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority is slated to resume Wednesday. Airlines were expected to begin flying at Boston’s Logan Airport Wednesday morning and to have full schedules back in place by Thursday, according to an airport official.
A blizzard warning for Boston ended Tuesday evening as the snow tapered off, but one remained in effect for the south coast, Cape Cod and nearby islands.
Strong winds and coastal flooding were reported from the coastline of Long Island, New York, to Massachusetts. Wind gusts reached 60-75 mph during the storm.
The storm’s heaviest snow bands stayed north and east of New York City, leaving the nation’s biggest metropolis at the lower end of the snow forecast. Snowfall at LaGuardia Airport, in the relatively heavy-hit eastern New York borough of Queens, stood at 11 inches.
Fearing the worst late Monday, officials shut down mass transit systems from New York City to Boston, and closed roads to traffic in all or parts of five states. Thousands of flights were canceled because of the storm.
In all, seven states — including Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Rhode Island and New Hampshire — declared states of emergency.
On Tuesday, after a huge snowfall failed to materialize in some cases, officials in some Northeast cities and states lifted the travel bans and defended their decision to impose them in the first place.
“My job as a leader is to make decisions, and I will always err on the side of safety or caution,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said. “To me, it was a no-brainer. We have to take precautions to keep people safe.”
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