Winter Storm In The Northeast Affecting Air Travel At South Florida Airports
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MIAMI (CBSMiami/AP) — A major winter storm which covered a large swath of the country in snow wreaked havoc on air travel Sunday, canceling nearly 2,000 flights nationwide.
As of 3 p.m., there had been 9 cancellations at Miami International Airport, 15 delayed arrivals and 31 cancellations and 63 delays at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
Travelers are encouraged to check with their airlines before heading to the airports to either embark or pick up passengers.
Boston's Logan Airport was being one of the hardest hit, according to FlightAware, a flight tracking company.
Typically bustling security lines, ticketing counters and baggage claims were largely deserted Sunday morning at Logan Airport, but some stranded passengers lingered.
"We've been sleeping, playing Candy Crush," said Xavi Ortega, a 32-year old engineer whose 10:30 p.m. flight to Barcelona was canceled.
Ortega said he and his wife, who reside in the Spanish city, slept overnight at the airport and wouldn't be able to get onto another flight until Sunday night.
Meanwhile, residents along the heavily populated coast from New York to Boston awoke Sunday having largely escaped major snowfall but bracing for plummeting temperatures that will likely lead to a hard freeze and potentially dangerous conditions.
Manhattan saw mostly rain, cities along Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts' coast recorded two to five inches, but mountainous interior communities were blanketed in fresh snow.
Meteorologists warned the primary concern now is plunging temperatures that will be some of the coldest felt so far this season.
Wind chills were expected to hit in the teens in the New York City area, 25 below in Albany and down to 40 below in the Adirondacks.
In New England, they're expected to fall to as low as 20 below zero around Boston, 30 below zero in the Berkshires and as low as 35 below zero in parts of Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire.
Amtrak canceled some trains Saturday from Chicago to Washington and New York and between New York and Boston and Pennsylvania on Sunday.
In Chicago, a plane skidded from a slick runway at O'Hare International Airport. No injuries were reported. In Kansas, a snowplow driver was killed when his vehicle rolled over. And in southeastern Missouri, slippery conditions caused a 15-vehicle crash on Interstate 55.
President Donald Trump urged Americans affected by the winter storm to "be careful" in a tweet early Sunday, but, as he's done in the past, he conflated the short-term weather phenomenon with longer-term climate change.
(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
