Hamburg, Pa. – National Guardsmen in Humvees ferried food, fuel and baby supplies Thursday to hundreds of motorists stranded on a 50-mile stretch of highway for nearly a day by a monster storm blamed for 15 deaths.
The traffic jam on the icy, hilly section of Interstate 78 in eastern Pennsylvania started to ease by the afternoon, but drivers were still seething.
“How could you operate a state like this? It’s totally disgusting,” said Eugene Coleman, of Hartford, Conn.
The sprawling storm system hit Wednesday and blew out to sea Thursday, leaving huge snow piles, frigid temperatures and tens of thousands without power across the Midwest and Northeast.
Numerous areas saw more than a foot of snow, with 42 inches falling in the southern Adirondacks in New York.
The state shut down a large section of I-78 around 8 a.m. to try to clear snow and ice and move the vehicles, including hundreds of tractor-trailers.
Some were stranded by road conditions, while others ran out of fuel or had other mechanical problems.
Police took fuel to some motorists and food to others, including several diabetics who had called 911, state Trooper Shawn Mell said.
JetBlue Airways Corp. was dealing with irate customers who were stuck on planes for up to 11 hours at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport on Wednesday. The airline planned to offer refunds and free flights to the stranded passengers.
There are no government regulations limiting the time an airline can keep passengers on grounded aircraft. The airlines’ voluntary code of conduct simply says that during such extraordinary delays, they will make “reasonable efforts” to meet passenger needs for food, water, restroom facilities and medical assistance.
Sean Corrinet of Salem, Mass., spent almost nine hours aboard a JetBlue flight for Cancun, Mexico, that never got off the ground.
“It was like – what’s the name of that prison in Vietnam where they held McCain? The Hanoi Hilton,” Corrinet said, referring to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
He said the crew passed out bags of chips – the only food available – and periodically cracked the hatch to let in fresh, cool air.
The airline acknowledged that it hesitated nearly five hours before calling for a fleet of buses to unload at least seven jets that spent the day sitting on runways because of the weather and congestion at the gates.
