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Snowstorms disrupt travel in central US
Chicago (AFP) Dec 28, 2007 Heavy snowstorms continued to disrupt travel in the central United States Friday and forecasters said little relief was expected until the New Year. More than 400 flights were cancelled and delays were averaging an hour and a half at Chicago's O'Hare airport as the storm system which crippled Denver on Thursday moved eastward. But the Chicago airport authority said there was no need yet to bring out the cots set up last weekend as fog and wind stranded thousands of Christmas travelers. "They're handling it fine," spokeswoman Karen Pride said of Friday's stranded and delayed passengers. "It looks like it's a normal day." United Airlines, which has hubs in both Chicago and Denver, has been hard-hit by the storms. Last weekend's delays led the airline to cancel even more flights on Monday and Tuesday because of crew shortages after mandatory work limits were reached. The debacle led to harsh words from the company's pilots union, which noted that other airlines had managed to operate with few cancellations in the same conditions. United said it shifted the crews around to make sure that passengers made it to their destinations in time for Christmas and that the current storm would not upset their schedule as much. "We will operate as many flights as we safely can," spokeswoman Megan McCarthy told AFP. "We have sufficient pilots to operate our flights for the remainder of the year." But delays and cancellations could be unavoidable given the storm systems expected to blow through the midwest in the coming days, the National Weather Service predicted. "It's going to be a fairly active week," said meteorologist Michael Eckert. "It looks like the Great Lakes and northeast United States are going to have mostly snow for tonight and Saturday, cooling down on Sunday and a second storm system will be riding up the east coast Sunday and Monday," he said in a telephone interview Friday. "Then we'll have another storm system coming across the Great Lakes and much of the eastern United States will get really cold for the New Year." Both systems will dump about eight to 15 centimeters (three to six inches) of snow, which is quite normal for this time of year but enough to make road and runway conditions difficult, he added. Related Links It's A White Out at TerraDaily.com
US Midwest digs out of storm which killed 11
Washington (AFP) Dec 24, 2007Power was back on for most of the greater Chicago area Monday after a heavy snow storm blew through the region grounding flights for Christmas holiday travellers and leaving 11 dead in road accidents, according to reports. |
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