Mon, March 02, 2009
NEW YORK, March 1 (Xinhua) -- City workers and residents in New York are bracing for a major snowstorm overnight, with meteorologists forecasting up to 33 cm of snow by Monday morning.
Some schools in the city have already announced that they would be closed Monday due to the weather, and hundreds of flights scheduled for Monday morning are cancelled.
The city's Department of Sanitation prepared Sunday for more than two days of snow removal from the streets.
"It's going to be a difficult morning for public transportation. We're going to be making every effort to have the roadways open," John Doherty, the sanitation commissioner, was quoted as saying.
Doherty said his department would deploy about 1,600 plows, plus more salt equipment and other machinery to clear the roadways, local television station NY1 reported.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged New Yorkers to "check in on elderly or infirm neighbors."
He also called on city residents to take public transit so as to help clear the streets as quickly as possible.
A rare heavy snow hit the U.S. southern states of Alabama and Georgia on Sunday, according to the National Weather Service.
The weather forecasters said up to 47 cm of snow has been accumulated in Tennessee since late Saturday and about 14 cm in Alabama and North Carolina.
As the snowstorm headed toward the Northeast, snow accumulations is also expected to reach 35.6 cm in Philadelphia by late Sunday
The weather service has issued a winter storm warning for a mixture of snow, sleet and freezing rain.
