Snowstorm batters eastern US; flight cancellations stretch to holiday's end

WASHINGTON－After a bruising holiday week of flight cancellations and record surges in COVID-19 cases, a powerful winter snowstorm further snarled transport in the United States on Monday, shuttering the federal government and bringing Washington to a standstill.

The storm packed an unexpectedly fierce punch and appeared to have caught much of the capital city off guard, temporarily stranding US President Joe Biden on Air Force One and dumping up to 23 centimeters of snow on Washington.

Many people have been scrambling to return home after the Christmas and New Year holidays, with thousands of flights canceled due to bad weather and airline staffing woes blamed in part on rising coronavirus infections among flight crews.

More than 4,900 flights on Monday, the first workday of 2022, were canceled globally, including 3,173 flights within, into or out of the US, according to flight tracking website FlightAware.

The latest cancellations－along with 6,775 flight delays on Monday－compounded travel misery.

"The last day of the year-end holiday travel rush is unfolding like every day since Christmas Eve for airline passengers: Chaotic," said USA Today, while noting that this weekend's cancellations marked "the worst two-day stretch of the holiday travel season".

While much of the US mid-Atlantic was caught in the bad weather, conditions were acute in the capital and neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia, where accumulation in some spots topped 30.5 cm, according to meteorologists who described it as the region's biggest snowstorm in at least two years.

"This is a heavy snow," said Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington, where workers scrambled to clear snow, trees and tumbled power lines with plows. The US Senate also postponed votes and health officials suspended COVID-19 testing.

"If it is not absolutely necessary for you to go out, stay home and off the roads," she warned.

Biden on Air Force One

A 7-year-old child in Tennessee and a 5-year-old child in DeKalb County were killed as a result of trees falling onto their homes amid heavy snow.

Airports were experiencing blizzard conditions, with authorities reportedly ordering temporary ground stops during a midday whiteout at Washington and Baltimore airports.

Biden himself was snowed in aboard his presidential aircraft after landing at Joint Base Andrews near Washington, with deboarding delayed by half an hour as the tarmac had to be plowed.

The winter blast offered a distraction from Washington's endless political divides. In bucolic scenes, children were seen sledding on Capitol Hill, while adventurers skied on the National Mall.

But for many passengers, holiday travel morphed into a nightmare.

"Hey @SouthwestAir can you stop canceling every single flight out of DCA (Washington National Airport)? I need to go home!" wrote passenger Kyle Hughes on Twitter.

Federal workers in and around the capital were told to stay home. But with telework becoming routine during the two-year pandemic, it was unclear how much of the government would be affected.

Schools around the region were also closed due to snow.

Airports in major transit hubs Chicago and Atlanta, as well as Denver, Detroit, Houston and Newark, were hard hit over the weekend. By Monday, the east coast airports in New York, Washington and Baltimore were scrapping most flights.

Around the world, air traffic suffered snarls over the holidays because of airline staffing issues linked to the spread of the highly contagious Omicron variant.

Many pilots and flight attendants have called in sick after testing positive or being forced to quarantine due to contact with someone who has the virus.

Agencies - Xinhua