East Coast Snowstorm Making For Tricky Traveling
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The snow on the East Coast is causing some Christmas trips to last a little longer. Travelers are stranded at airports in cities in the path of the storm.
New York City is seeing one to two inches of snow fall every hour. There are no flights leaving or landing in all three major airports in the New York Metropolitan area.
More than 1400 flights have been canceled at Newark, LaGuardia and JFK and those cancellations have trickled down to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
For the most part, if you're flying anywhere else besides the Northeast, your chances of getting out are pretty good. A look at the departure board at MSP shows most flights are on time or delayed a bit one of the few flights heading east that was not canceled is going to North Carolina.
"All the flights have been canceled so far so ours is the only one left so we're hoping it doesn't get canceled," said traveler Jennifer Low.
Minnesota travelers found very little keeping them from checking bags and getting boarding passes at MSP in a timely fashion.
But the big three airports in the New York City area are seeing no planes leaving or arriving. Newark International Airport saw thousands of holiday travelers standing in long lines. They learned all flights out of the airport have been canceled and there is no word on when they will resume. At the two airports in New York City, it's pretty much the same.
It's just the tip of the problems caused by a storm system that could bring more than a foot of snow to some places. The storm slammed the Jersey Shore bringing near white out conditions to Atlantic City. The combination of snow and wind made getting around difficult.
So much snow was hitting the area that Amtrak canceled train service between New York City and Boston.
Back at Minneapolis-St. Paul International, we only found two travelers who were trying to get back east. They told said they've been trying to get to the NYC area all day. They were so upset they did not want to speak on camera.
A spokesperson for the airport says so far no one will have to set up camp for the night inside.
Most who planned to fly out to other parts of the country did, those who planned to head east have changed their travel plans or decided to wait out the storm.
Delta Air Lines has canceled 850 flights and says it expects to cancel even more flights on Monday. Make sure you call ahead to check and see if your flight is leaving.
WCCO-TV's Reg Chapman Reports
