Millions of Americans were preparing to dig themselves out Sunday after a mammoth blizzard with hurricane-force winds and record-setting snowfall brought much of the East Coast to an icy standstill.
Travel bans barring non-emergency vehicles from the roads of New York City and Baltimore have been lifted, and mass transit systems that had been partially suspended during the storm were scheduled to run again.
But even as United Airlines said limited service might begin later in the afternoon in New York City, airports in the Washington D.C. area were likely to remain closed Sunday, and other airlines started to cut Monday service. Flight cancelations for Monday for all airlines stood at 615 as of early Sunday morning, but FlightAware said that is sure to rise.
The bulk of Saturday's 4,459 cancelations were at airports in the New York City and Washington, D.C., metro areas, according to flight tracking service FlightAware. Another 2,467 flights were canceled for Sunday, and the count keeps rising.
The massive snowstorm brought both the nation's capital and its largest city to a stop, dumping as much as 3 feet of snow and stranding tens of thousands of travelers. At least 18 deaths were blamed on the weather, resulting from car crashes, shoveling snow and hypothermia.
The snow dropped 26.8 inches in Central Park, the second-most recorded since 1869. The snowfall narrowly missed tying the previous record of 26.9 inches set in February 2006.
