March “lion” slams east coast

From New Hampshire to the Carolinas, March came in, as the saying goes, like a lion. Snow, sleet and wind gusts reaching 30 mph have lead to for motor vehicle deaths, school closings and chaos at airports.

More than 900 flights have been canceled at New York area airports (JFK, Newark and LaGuardia). Hundreds more at Logan International Airport in Boston never left the ground, where the airport closed for more than half an hour to clear a runway. In Philadelphia, more than 40 people were stranded overnight.

Even the bus operators got into the delay and cancellation game. Greyhound and Peter Pan scrapped trips into and out of New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

So, get comfortable. It’s going to take a while to sort this mess out.

First possible blizzard since 1996 is gumming up Ohio

Catherine mentioned in her latest Gadling Take 5 post that it’s breaking up in Alaska where she lives. It’s socking in in Ohio. This is the first blizzard warning we’ve had in central Ohio for years. Streets are a real mess–so is Port Columbus International Airport. I just heard an interview with someone who is waiting at the airport for a friend to arrive. The friend’s airplane did arrive but the plane couldn’t land until the runway was clear. Since it didn’t have enough gas to keep circling the airport, it went onto Detroit to refuel and will be back. Flights out are getting canceled. I hope her friend likes Detroit.

We don’t get much snow here so people can be a bit reactionary when snow flies. Folks have flocked to the grocery store to stock up on food. It’s like people go into Little House on the Prairie mode thinking that they’re stocking up for months of hard times. From what I’ve heard, it’s going to quit snowing by tomorrow afternoon. If we didn’t buy food for a week, at my house, we’d still be able to find something to eat–shriveled potatoes, perhaps. I’m wondering, though, if I should have headed to the grocery store for loaves of bread and milk, the most popular items, according to the news. The hording tendency is catching.

These are the days that remind folks that no matter how much you plan, it just might not work out. You could end up in Detroit. Not that there’s anything wrong with Detroit, but only if that’s where you planned to head in the first place. Or-you could be stuck in Columbus.