The nation’s capital is days away from recovering from the first major blizzard of the season to impact the East Coast, D.C. officials say.
“We are now 36 hours into the big digout,” D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, told reporters Monday. She said it will take “several days” to finish the cleanup, although “a lot of progress” has been made.
Bowser urged D.C. residents to stay off the streets to allow crews to remove snow from still-blocked secondary streets, parking lanes and the safety shoulders of several of the area’s roadways.
Many of the city’s streets have been reduced to single lanes due to large snow piles, making driving difficult and potentially dangerous.
Federal offices were closed Monday due to the snowfall, although the Supreme Court was open and issuing decisions.
Official reports have the death count from the weekend’s storm so far at 31, including D.C., Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. Those range from an 82-year-old man who had a heart attack while shoveling snow to traffic accidents to a mother and 1-year-old who died from carbon monoxide poisoning while sitting in a running car whose tailpipe was blocked by snow.
