Storm Hits East Coast, Craziness Ensues
A massive snowstorm has hit the east coast, basically shutting down the airport and leaving thousands stranded in airports shortly before Christmas. The blizzard knocked out Washington, D.C., New York, and Philadelphia, also carpeting New Jersey, Maryland, Ohio, West Virginia and Delaware.
The storm left thousands stranded in airports across the northwest, with nowhere to go, as Amtrak and Greyhound are both booked up and still canceling trips for safety reasons. The storm hit over the pre-holiday weekend, with thousands traveling to New York to see the famous Rockefeller Center Tree and celebrate the holidays in the Big Apple. D.C. is already recovering, but New York and Philadelphia are still digging themselves out of the snow.
It wasn’t all hassle, however, when a huge, mass snowball fight broke out in Times Square on Saturday night during the snowball fight, with thousands participating. The fight has become something of an internet sensation, and pictures have been flooding the internet.
A similar, event occurred in Washington, D.C., but the buzz was killed when an off-duty police detective drew his gun after several people threw snowballs at his Hummer while he was inside. He emerged from the car with his gun drawn, with some panicking and running away, and others still throwing snowballs at him. As it became apparent that he had a gun, a crowd gathered around the officer chanting “You don’t bring a gun to a snowball fight!” It was caught on video by several people.
The officer shouted back, “Throw another snowball!” in an apparent threat, and when the officer was asked why he pulled the gun, he said, “because I got hit by snowballs!” and the crowd continued to hassle him until police officers arrived on the scene and calmed everyone down.
The officer has been censured by the D.C. Chief of Police, who called it “totally inappropriate.”
Several people died in car crashes due to the slick roads over the weekend, and one died of exposure, but other than that, despite the massiveness of the snow storm, people emerged from it relatively unharmed. As of this writing, power was still out in parts of the Southeast coast, and the airlines were attempting to return to normal as quickly as possible.
Though there were many instances of major inconvenience – aside from 1200 flight cancellations in NYC alone, 150 were stranded for five hours on a Long Island train – New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that the commerce in the city prior to Christmas wouldn’t be severely affected, and that instead, New Yorkers should see it as a White Christmas.
