By Edith Honan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - New Yorkers dug out of the sixth biggest snowstorm in the city's history and thousands of stranded travelers hoped to finally board long-delayed flights on Tuesday after a blizzard buried the U.S. Northeast the day after Christmas.
An eerie quiet hung over the city and its largely empty streets, many still unplowed, and crippled commuter rail service struggled to resume regular operations after the storm dumped 20 inches over a 17-hour period on Sunday and Monday.
Boston, Philadelphia and other cities on the Atlantic Coast also got pummeled with similar snowfall and crept back to life after an extended holiday hiatus when garbage went uncollected, offices stayed shut and shoppers stayed home on what normally is one of the busiest retail days of the year.
With 4,500 flights canceled or delayed on Sunday and Monday in New York's three major airports alone, tens of thousands of passengers camped out in terminals. Airlines could need another day or two to work through the backlog, officials said.
An American football game that was suspended on Sunday night in Philadelphia was rescheduled for Tuesday.
Financial markets were operating normally but Monday's trading volume of 2 billion shares on the New York Stock Exchange marked the lightest day of the year.
True to character, New Yorkers complained about storm relief while the city's fleet of 2,000 snow-plowing sanitation trucks struggled to clear major arteries, secondary streets feeding those avenues, and smaller side streets, in that order.
After fire trucks and city buses got stuck in the snow, and many neighborhoods in the boroughs outside Manhattan had yet to see plows, accusations rained in that City Hall failed to prepare for a blizzard that was forecast days in advance.
"I am increasingly concerned the city did not take every necessary step to minimize the disruption," said Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, whose elected post was created to counter the mayor's powers.
ABANDONED VEHICLES
"More decisive steps should have been taken to keep drivers off the roadways and prevent so many abandoned vehicles from obstructing the city's snowplows. We need to determine if inadequate preparation played any role in grinding New York City to a halt," de Blasio said.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg testily defended the city's performance in a Monday afternoon news conference, saying sanitation workers were working around the clock to clear the city's 6,000 miles of streets.
In Brooklyn's Fort Greene neighborhood, stretches of sidewalks remained unshoveled, forcing commuters such as April Cuthbert, a materials manager at Brooklyn Hospital, to walk in the middle of the road.
"I don't think they were prepared," she said. "Manhattan, that's a money place. They make money in Manhattan," she added, explaining why her neighborhood was still snowed under.
Added Isaac Sanchez, 44, a librarian from Brooklyn: "It seems like they're touching only certain areas. It seems like all the semi-affluent areas are fine."
In Manhattan, Times Square was mostly cleared in preparation for Friday night's massive New Year's Eve celebration.
Traffic trickled over a thin layer of slush, after the so-called crossroads of the world had almost no cars on Monday when snow was piled high.
The storm moved into Canada's Maritime provinces and was headed northeastward toward Newfoundland early on Tuesday morning, the U.S. National Weather Service said.
(Reporting by Edith Honan and Daniel Trotta; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Vicki Allen)
