Storm causes travel chaos in U.S. northeast

Travellers in the northeastern United States faced a second day of chaos Monday, after a blizzard disrupted air, rail and road travel.

The winter storm swept through a large swath of the U.S. northeast, leaving thousands of people without a way to get home after the holidays.

Major New York-area airports were shut down Sunday evening, forcing many travellers to spend the night camped out at the airport. Buses were stranded on snowed-in highways and subway passengers spent a cold night stuck in an unheated subway train.

By Monday evening, John F. Kennedy International, Newark Liberty and LaGuardia airports had reopened and a small number of flights were departing and arriving.

A Royal Jordanian flight was the first to arrive at John F. Kennedy, shortly before 7 p.m. ET, said Steve Coleman of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airports.

An Air Canada flight from Toronto landed at LaGuardia Airport at about 7:40 p.m. Just before the plane touched down, the captain came over the loudspeaker and informed passengers that it was the first flight to land at LaGuardia since the blizzard hit.

"Everyone was clapping toward the end," said Patrick Wacker, 37, who had been stranded in Toronto for a day while trying to get back to New York after visiting his parents in Frankfurt, Germany.

Wacker and other deplaning passengers said there was some turbulence on landing and the plane had to be towed to the gate because it couldn't get through the snow on the runway.

Jason Cochran, a New York-based travel reporter, was stuck at JFK airport for almost 24 hours.

He waited in a plane parked on the tarmac for about 4½ hours Sunday before being sent back to the terminal.

"By the time we got back into the terminal all ties back to the city were severed and we were stuck here overnight," he told CBC News on Monday.

"We went through a dark period about six or seven hours ago, when all the restaurants started to run out of food. They were undersupplied for the blizzard and couldn't cope with the demand.

"Now, however, the sun is beginning to shine and people are beginning to get boarding passes for a hoped for departure after 6 o'clock, when JFK reopens."

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday that things were under control after the storm — the fifth largest snowstorm in the city's history.

However, abandoned cars were slowing efforts to plow the streets, said Bloomberg, who urged anyone who did not need to drive to stay off the roads.

Not even New York City's subway system could withstand the winter storm, with some above-ground lines experiencing major delays. Some subway passengers were stranded for hours on trains that broke down overnight in Queens and finally pulled into a station by midday Monday.

Buses were knocked out as well, cabs were little more than a myth, and those who tried walking out of the station were assailed with a hard, frigid wind that made snow sting like needles.

A blizzard warning was in effect early Monday from Delaware to the far northern tip of Maine. The same storm later hit the Maritimes.

A state of emergency was declared in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, Maine and Massachusetts, where Gov. Deval Patrick urged people who did not have to be on the roads to stay home to ensure their safety and that of work crews. Non-essential state workers were told to stay home Monday as well.

The Manchester Boston Regional Airport outside Manchester, N.H., was nearly deserted Monday morning.

Sitting alone at a table in the food court was Alicia Kinney, a 25-year-old mission worker from Columbus, Ohio. Her flight to Newark, N.J., was cancelled and she could not get a confirmed seat before Wednesday.

Kinney slept overnight on benches in the baggage claim area before moving up to the food court for a soda pop in the morning.

"I came at 4 p.m. [Sunday] and got a standby seat to Cleveland, but at the last minute that flight was cancelled," Kinney said. "By then, it was too bad outside for my friends to come back and get me. It's a funny situation. I'm trying to stay positive."

Amtrak cancelled train service from New York to Boston after doing the same earlier for several trains in Virginia.

The storm was the result of a low pressure system off the North Carolina coast and strengthened as it moved northeast, the U.S. National Weather Service said. Because of it, parts of the South had their first white Christmas since records have been kept.

The storm also affected people hoping to fly out of Toronto's Pearson airport. More than 200 flights, or about 17 per cent of the flights originating from the Toronto airport and bound for cities such as New York, New Jersey, Boston and Philadelphia, were affected by cancellations in the U.S.

Other flights to Canadian destinations, including Ottawa, Montreal, Moncton, N.B., and Halifax, were also delayed or cancelled.