Reuters AlertNet – Record snowfall in northeast US strands travelers
NEW YORK, Feb 13 (Reuters) – New Yorkers dug their way out of thigh-high record snowfall on Monday after the biggest snowstorm of the season canceled flights and delayed trains across the northeastern United States.
The sun came out as people returned to work after relentless snow kept falling most of Sunday, sinking New York City into its deepest snow on record.
The storm cut power to tens of thousands of homes and stranded many people who had gone away for the weekend.
Yeah. I got called into the office yesterday to work on a emergency-backup res team. Our office sometimes gets tapped to take overflow calls from the regular after-hours teams – when they can predict that there’s going to be a spike, they sign people up in advance for extra hours. I knew that a few people were going in this weekend, but they needed some more hands, apparently, so they started calling everyone. I managed to get in for the end of shift Sunday – it would have been earlier, but I had plans that I couldn’t break.
One guy I talked with was changing his reservations by candlelight, because he was stuck on a peninsula behind a downed power line, unable to get out the next morning (and besides, his flight was probably cancelled, anyway). He was laughing so hard at his predicament, it made my night.
Saturday was pretty busy, too: my brother-in-law Dan had his retirement ceremony from the Navy. Oh, that reminds me! I’ve got a bunch of pictures to look at! Not as many as I hoped, because Dan asked me to run the videocam at the last minute.
I tried to do a decent job of panning slowly and following action and anticipating, but I was in the second row and they were all up on a dais with a funny white railing that was just at the wrong angle for photos and video. When the people on the dais (Dan, his CO, other guests of honor) were seated, their heads appeared to be balanced on the rail like so many eggs. Oh, well, it looked much better when people were standing. It was very moving and colorful, and afterwards my sister-in-law Deb had brought a LOT of baked goods for all of Dan’s shipmates to enjoy.
I’ve got copies of the speeches – there were two poems as well.
Yes, I got all choked up. I can probably be heard blubbing and snuffling away on the video.