Snow Day: Nor'Easter Blankets East Coast

(CBS/AP)  All across the Northeast, March stormed in with a message, reports CBS News Weather anchor Dave Price: Winter's not over yet.

School systems from the Carolinas to New England closed Monday. In New York City alone, more than a million kids enjoyed a snow day - the first in five years.

Dozens of schools across New Hampshire, New Jersey and Maine also gave children a snow day. Schools in Philadelphia and Boston did the same.

Some New York parents complained that the city waited until 5:40 a.m. to call off classes, saying they didn't have enough notice. Mayor Michael Bloomberg brushed off the criticism and praised the city's storm response, which included dispatching 2,000 workers and 1,400 plows to work around the clock to clean New York's 6,000 miles of streets.

"It's like plowing from here to Los Angeles and back," Bloomberg said at a news conference, standing in front of an orange snow plow at a garage.

While kids squealed with delight, city budgets shivered under the weight. New York City estimates the cost of snow removal at $1 million for every inch that falls. With Monday's accumulation, it's at least an $8 million job. And, in New Jersey, the state has spent about $22 million on snow so far this winter, about twice what was budgeted.

"It's been a brutal winter it hasn't let up yet," says snow plow driver Steve Grant.

The storm started in the South, Price reports, and by Sunday night, drivers in South Carolina were abandoning their cars on Interstate-85. First a downed power line halted traffic, and then cars became stuck in the snow.

At least four people were reported dead in traffic accidents as the storm made its way north. In Atlanta, ice brought a tree down on a house, causing a fire but no fatalities.

Philadelphia declared a Code Blue weather emergency, which gives officials the authority to bring homeless people into shelters because the weather poses a threat of serious harm or death.

Travelers were stranded everywhere, with most flights canceled at the three main airports in the New York area and at Boston's Logan International Airport. The Boston airport had to shut down for about 40 minutes to clear a runway.

Virginia saw snow from Williamsburg to Lynchburg. In Washington, the federal government opened two hours late.

Power has been restored to thousands of people in northern Virginia, but many southern Maryland residents are still in the dark.

By 5:15 p.m., the Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative was reporting more than 7,000 customers were without power in St. Mary's, Calvert and Charles counties. St. Mary's appeared to be the hardest hit with about 5,000 customers losing power.

In northern Virginia, Dominion Power is reporting power has been restored to all but 750 customers. The Richmond area was hardest hit, though, with about 35,000 power outages.

The storm is winding down in Philadelphia but only after the tail end dumped a few more inches of snow in the area.

The National Weather Service reports just over 9 inches of snow fell at Philadelphia International Airport, though other neighborhoods and parts of downtown received less.

Snowfall totals in the suburbs are ranging from more than 9 inches in Perkasie to a little over 4 inches in Langhorne. In the Lehigh Valley, Easton got 9 inches but Allentown and Bethlehem got less than half that.

But the problems weren't restricted to the roadways and the airways, Price reports, 140 people spent the night Sunday on an Amtrak train stuck between Washington D.C. and Newport News, Va., unable to go forward or backward, although they did have heat and food.

[spiritwalk]

You got to admit, whatever side of this discussion you are on, the juxtaposition of a global warming demonstration and a snow storm is just plain funny!
Posted by AOCGUY
..........................................................
I was more impressed by the "juxtaposition" of Princess Diana and Mother Theresa being buried on the same day and the people thrown into despair wondering what they would do in a world without Princess Di.
Three days of round the clock CNN coverage on Di's funeral and Mother Whatsherface's funeral covered on the back page of the paper between Beetle Bailey and the hog futures.
The gods often like to punk the mortals, but they never get the joke.

[AOCGUY]

You got to admit, whatever side of this discussion you are on, the juxtaposition of a global warming demonstration and a snow storm is just plain funny!

[spiritwalk]

Hmmmmm.
Sounds like you're what some of us call a "primitivist". Familiar with that term?
Posted by lloydbest1
...................................................................
And how does what I am, or your ability to spot what I am going to prevent the next ice age?

Anarchy is not going to cause it, or prevent it either.

Do you think that the number of words in the dictionary or your ability to memorize a significant number of them is going to prevent climate change, stop continental drift or hold back the glaciers from sweeping away every city built by man?

"Primitivist", is a word I belive you are using as some form of insult. But, no matter what word you chose to use it will not alter the reality of the situation. If the honey bee were to disappear off the Earth then the whole process of pollination would be upset and the existence of every plant and animal on Earth would be threatened. If Man were to disappear the cycle of nature would not be effected one tiny bit. life would go on as if Man had never existed.

The importance of Man in nature and to the Earth exists in only one realm, Man's ego and the fact that he knows more words than a bee does not alter the fact that his relevance to life on this planet is really less than that of a dung beetle.

And nothing you can say or do will change that.

[louiville2]

Posted by lloydbest1 at 6:18 AM

In 1972 Gregory Peck did a comercial about that we would be out of oil in ten years.

Actually there are numerous oilfields that are recharging, geologist believe we are creating as much oil/NG as we are using. Oil-CO2-OIL.... is a natural cycle and fits in with the what's here has allways been here and will always be here.

[lloydbest1]

Posted by spiritwalk at 8:58 AM : Mar 3, 2009

Hmmmmm.
Sounds like you're what some of us call a "primitivist". Familiar with that term?

Primitivism is one element in that vast umbrella of components that make up the anarchist movement.

Don't want to wander too far off topic but I suggest you google "John Zerzan" to get an insight of what primitivsm entails....

[spiritwalk]

Those who sound the "global warming" alarm are merely pointing out one byproduct of what I consider a far more serious problem; one that, unlike possible global warming, is a SURE FIRE bet to kill civilization:
Posted by lloydbest1
...........................................................
"Civilization" is a term, used by humans, to describe what to the Earth is a temporary infestation of fleas.
In the past 2 million years the Earth has gone through 18 "MAJOR" ice ages. Glaciers have formed and wiped the Earth clean, it has warmed up and had a new cycle of growth of new species and then wiped it clean again. Odds are that within the next 10,000 years the process will begin again. New York City will be buried under 100 feet of ice (again), species will die off and then when it warms again, a new cycle of life will begin again.
Do you really think that will change because you buy a hybrid?
10,000 years ago the Sahara was a rain forest, 100,000 years ago the Rocky Mountains were hills, 1,000,000 years ago Florida and South Africa were next door neighbors.
Do you really think "civilization" had any effect on any of that?
Maybe a giant asteroid will strike and wipe "civilization"out like the dinosaurs. More likely climate change will come and send us to join the Wooly Mammoth and a billion other species who have gone the same way.
You cannot stop that, no matter how "green" your toilet paper is. To think you can do anything to change that is just the arrogance of MAN.
No matter what sky god you believe you have been created in the image of, to the Earth you are merely a flea.

[lloydbest1]

"If snow is 5 feet deep in May, throughout the USA .....global warming will still be the mantra for the left. You just don't understand. It HAS TO BE REAL!!!........They simply have WAY too much invested in it. What happens if both poles add 2 feet of ice and drop 4 degrees in temp? We go on as though global warming was established fact. Truth is ......it's RELIGION! It is so intertwined with leftist politics that if it falls......they fall with it. Ergo.....It HAS to be real!"
Posted by ericdrexil at 7:27 PM : Mar 2, 2009

For some that may be true. For most of us who are concerned, it is far more than just climate change. Those who sound the "global warming" alarm are merely pointing out one byproduct of what I consider a far more serious problem; one that, unlike possible global warming, is a SURE FIRE bet to kill civilization: The profligate extraction and use of non renewable hydrocarbon based energy sources.
Our oil reserves are limited. No technology we have now or in the forseeable future will generate us enough alternative hydrocarbon sources to make up for the shortfall that is inevitable when our easily extractable stuff is gone. When that well runs dry and we have no back up, the resultant wars, mass migrations, possible famines and acrimonious competition among various social interests will make the Holocaust look like a cakewalk. There is no way civilization as we know it today can survive that.
If we are to achieve true energy independence we will need to consider investing heavily in "Green" energy.
Even if we can somehow find a way to generate unlimited energy without adversely affecting the environment and the atmosphere, we still have to deal with steadily diminishing reserves of fresh water, good soil, timber, fisheries, wetlands and several other essentials I don't have room to cover. A severe enough shortage of any or all of the above will also have serious, even lethal, consequences for our civilization.
I may get in trouble with the "Climate Change" crowd but the prevention or mitigation of global warming is NOT the reason we should be careful about our hydrocarbon consumption and CO2 byproduct generation. We need to think about conserving of what's left and consider simplifying our lifestyles strictly for their own merits and the sake of our descendants REGARDLESS of whether global warming is real or not.

[spiritwalk]

The Three Stages of Global Warming Denial

1) It is not real.
2) It is real, but will not affect us.
3) It is real and will affect us, but too late to do anything.
Posted by jimsmename at 12:29 PM
Posted by louiville2
...................................................
If climate change is not a normal cycle of weather...why is Greenland ice and Iceland green?

When the ancient Romans went into Britain they brought grape vines to make theri own wine. When they left 500 years later the climate was too cold to grow grapes.

For the next 1,000 years the Thames River froze solid every winter. It froze so solidly that merchants on both sides of the river would move their shops to the middle of the river and hold the Thames Frost Fair. This was a normal part of London life every year until 1815 which was the year that the river froze over.

Since this all happened before the Industrial Revolution that warming can't be blamed on industrial pollution.

Perhaps this is mostly the effect of normal cycles of climate change.

If the climate has not changed constantly throughout the history of the earth...why is Greenland ice and Iceland green?

[ubrew12]

ajmarine2 said: "Whatever is happening, it has been going on since the World began. "

Here's the thing that's remarkable to me. You can make a completely unjustified, God-like statement like that: 'its been going on since the World began', and yet, somehow, I am the one enthralled by a leftist 'religion'.

CO2 is a greenhouse gas, without which the world would be ICE. The greenhouse effect was first proposed 200 years ago, and understood as FACT 140 years ago. Another fact: this potent greenhouse gas, CO2, has increased 50% in the last 150 years, due to industrialization. Now, to assume an increase of 50% will have a significant effect on our climate, when we already know CO2 is a potent greenhouse gas, doesn't take the kind of faith-based 'its been going on since the world began' bvllsh*t you just spouted.

It just takes common sense. Come back to it, I know its in you.

[ajmarine2]

Todays snowstorm wasn't just about temperature, it was also about SNOW.

Figure it out before its too late.
Posted by ubrew12 at 7:12 PM : Mar 2, 2009



Whatever is happening, it has been going on since the World began.