DC faces days of blizzard cleanup

Washington will need several more days to return to normal after a weekend blizzard dropped more than 2 feet of snow along the East Coast, likely causing billions of dollars in damage and killing more than 30 people.

The U.S. capital was at a standstill, with federal government offices to be closed again on Tuesday, schools in the district and surrounding suburbs shut until at least Wednesday and the House of Representatives canceling all votes until next week. The Supreme Court, however, was open for business.

New York City began returning to normal on Sunday.

Washington's Mayor Muriel Bowser said city public schools would remain closed on Tuesday but that city government offices would reopen. She urged people to use mass transit rather than try to drive and park on the city's snow-clogged roads.

"We knew that we would have ... several days of cleanup ahead of us," she told reporters. "Know that we're going to be dealing with snow all of this week."

Officials reported at least 36 storm-related deaths, including traffic accidents and heart attacks while shoveling snow, in Washington, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and Virginia.

Among them was a North Carolina man who was shot and killed when he saw a motorist who had run off the road in the storm and attempted to help him. The motorist remained jailed on murder charges on Monday.

Risk Management Solutions meteorologist Jeff Waters said he could not provide specific damage estimates yet but said the storm "could rank as one of the more significant events in recent history." He said a comparable storm was the blizzard of 1996, which caused approximately $1.5 billion in economic losses and $740 million insured losses at the time.

Reinsurance broker Aon Benfield said on Monday the storm likely caused billions of dollars in economic losses, including damage to buildings and lost business from closures.

Officials said that all but one line in Washington's subway system — the second busiest in the nation, after New York's — would resume service on Tuesday and that bus services would be expanded.

High snow banks at street corners made travel in Washington difficult for pedestrians. "The hardest part was getting the stroller through the unclean sidewalks," said Isam Qahwash, a 41-year-old scientist from Princeton, New Jersey, as he carried his 14-month-old son in a stroller across a downtown street. "It seems like they move really slow cleaning the snow here."

Washington officials said the city has applied for federal disaster relief to help pay for the snowstorm's costs, which they did not estimate.

Reuters