On Christmas Day, Atlanta was hit with its first white Christmas in more than a decade. Although it rarely snows in Atlanta, several inches of the white powder tripped the city up, causing flight delays and hundreds of cancellations. 24 hours later the winter storm moved further north up the eastern seaboard, causing snow drifts up to 36 inches deep in the New York/New Jersey area and closing all 3 New York area airports.
I attended a post holiday party in Manhattan on Sunday night, braving around 4 inches of snow, high winds, and some odd thunder and lightening at the time of my arrival. Several hours later upon leaving the party, I stepped outside into a scene I never expected to see in New York City: at least 10 inches of snow covering the Manhattan streets. The sidewalks were impossible to navigate, prompting the party dwellers to tread down the middle of the streets. But surprisingly, that was OK, since the streets were COMPLETELY EMPTY! A veritable ghost town. Dozens of cars and buses were stranded and left abandoned right in the middle of what were once extremely busy intersections and thoroughfares. Taxi cabs were non-existent, prompting us to walk nearly a mile to the nearest subway station. The normal 24 hour hustle and bustle of New York City was dead. It was as if a nuclear weapon had been detonated and frozen the metropolis in time.
The NYC Subway system was active, but delayed. One “A” Train traveling near JFK Airport got stuck on above ground tracks, leaving passengers stranded and without heat for 6 hours. All NY area airports remained closed until early Monday evening, and all nearby hotels were sold out. A few brave taxi drivers saw a financial opportunity, threw caution to the wind, and drove a handful of travelers to their destination — at a flat rate starting at $100. per trip. Airlines set up makeshift cots in remote baggage claim areas for stranded passengers to sleep, while airport restaurants quickly ran out of food with no way for trucks to get to them to deliver supplies. All in all nearly 20,000 passengers were stranded at all local airports, and with the backlog of flights, some of those passengers won’t be able to get a standby seat for travel until perhaps Friday or Saturday.
It was the sixth largest snowstorm in New York history, which brought transit to a halt and spread a strange and wonderful hush over the city. As the city continues to dig itself out and get back to normalcy, the Great Blizzard of 2010 won’t soon be forgotten.
