New York:
Hundreds of airline passengers were stranded for up to 10 hours on the tarmac at John F Kennedy Airport in New York on Tuesday, as ambulances struggled to get patients through unploughed streets and city buses sat abandoned in the snow.
Officials warned it could take until the New Year to rebook all passengers and straighten out the transport mess created by the bad weather, which shut down all three of New York's major airports for 24 hours and caused a ripple effect across the United States.
The storm, which dumped 20 inches (50.8 centimetres) of snow on Central Park and ground the city's airports to a standstill, was New York City's sixth-worst since record-keeping began in 1869, according to a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
A 2006 storm dropped 26.9 inches (68.3 centimetres) of snow on Central Park, breaking the previous record, set in 1947, by half-an-inch (12.7 centimetres).
New York's airports struggled to get planes in and out and some jetliners couldn't even get to the gate.
At JFK airport, a British Airways plane from London carrying 300 passengers waited five hours for an open gate, and then two more hours for customs to open, said a spokesman for the airline.
A Cathay Pacific flight that had been diverted to Toronto spent 10 hours on the tarmac, and a second Cathay Pacific plane with 250 people was still on the runway after eight hours as of Tuesday afternoon.
Maria Chang, a Cathay Pacific passenger flying from Hong Kong, said it had taken her 40 hours to reach New York.
In that time, she said: "I think I can go around the world."
Airlines were dispatching planes to the airport without lining up gate space first, causing back-ups on the ground, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Kennedy.
Cathay Pacific spokesman Gus Whitcomb said the planes had taken off under the assumption that they would have somewhere to go upon landing.
In general, US airlines operating domestic flights are not allowed to keep passengers waiting on the tarmac for more than three hours.
But the rule does not apply to international flights or foreign airlines.
Many passengers had been stranded inside the airport terminal and could be seen sleeping on makeshift beds.
"There is no service, no facilities. So we spent a night in conditions, in animal conditions, I think," said Italia Bongarzone, a passenger from Italy.
The chaos was also reflected in New York's streets, where hundreds of abandoned city buses and dozens of ambulances still sat in the middle of snowdrifts from the storm, which hit the city with up to two feet (0.6 metres) of snow.
Officials predicted streets would not be clear until Wednesday - a day later than they first promised.
On one street in the Howard Beach area of Queens, residents were becoming frustrated as they attempted to dig their vehicles out of the snow.
John Napolitano, a Howard Beach resident, said: "If they had ploughed the street once, just once, we'd be able to do the rest and get our cars out," said John Napolitano. "Getting a little bit of that trapped feeling, that cabin fever going on now, after 48 hours."
Officials pleaded with private companies to help out, and the city converted various vehicles in its fleet into snowploughs, including trucks typically used for cleaning graffiti.
Some 1,000 vehicles had been removed from three major New York City-area expressways alone, the mayor said.
In New Jersey, police in helicopters counted at least 60 vehicles stranded along a highway at the shore.
Officials warned it could take until the New Year to rebook all passengers and straighten out the transport mess created by the bad weather, which shut down all three of New York's major airports for 24 hours and caused a ripple effect across the United States.
The storm, which dumped 20 inches (50.8 centimetres) of snow on Central Park and ground the city's airports to a standstill, was New York City's sixth-worst since record-keeping began in 1869, according to a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
A 2006 storm dropped 26.9 inches (68.3 centimetres) of snow on Central Park, breaking the previous record, set in 1947, by half-an-inch (12.7 centimetres).
New York's airports struggled to get planes in and out and some jetliners couldn't even get to the gate.
At JFK airport, a British Airways plane from London carrying 300 passengers waited five hours for an open gate, and then two more hours for customs to open, said a spokesman for the airline.
A Cathay Pacific flight that had been diverted to Toronto spent 10 hours on the tarmac, and a second Cathay Pacific plane with 250 people was still on the runway after eight hours as of Tuesday afternoon.
Maria Chang, a Cathay Pacific passenger flying from Hong Kong, said it had taken her 40 hours to reach New York.
In that time, she said: "I think I can go around the world."
Airlines were dispatching planes to the airport without lining up gate space first, causing back-ups on the ground, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Kennedy.
Cathay Pacific spokesman Gus Whitcomb said the planes had taken off under the assumption that they would have somewhere to go upon landing.
In general, US airlines operating domestic flights are not allowed to keep passengers waiting on the tarmac for more than three hours.
But the rule does not apply to international flights or foreign airlines.
Many passengers had been stranded inside the airport terminal and could be seen sleeping on makeshift beds.
"There is no service, no facilities. So we spent a night in conditions, in animal conditions, I think," said Italia Bongarzone, a passenger from Italy.
The chaos was also reflected in New York's streets, where hundreds of abandoned city buses and dozens of ambulances still sat in the middle of snowdrifts from the storm, which hit the city with up to two feet (0.6 metres) of snow.
Officials predicted streets would not be clear until Wednesday - a day later than they first promised.
On one street in the Howard Beach area of Queens, residents were becoming frustrated as they attempted to dig their vehicles out of the snow.
John Napolitano, a Howard Beach resident, said: "If they had ploughed the street once, just once, we'd be able to do the rest and get our cars out," said John Napolitano. "Getting a little bit of that trapped feeling, that cabin fever going on now, after 48 hours."
Officials pleaded with private companies to help out, and the city converted various vehicles in its fleet into snowploughs, including trucks typically used for cleaning graffiti.
Some 1,000 vehicles had been removed from three major New York City-area expressways alone, the mayor said.
In New Jersey, police in helicopters counted at least 60 vehicles stranded along a highway at the shore.
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