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American Morning
Let It Snow!
Aired December 26, 2002 - 07:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yesterday's heavy snow storm is causing major headaches in the northeast. The snow fall broke Christmas snow fall records across much of the region.
And one of the hardest-hit areas: Albany, New York. The city is digging out, quite literally, from almost 20 inches of snow.
And our own Whitney Casey is in the middle of the mess. She's traveled from Orlando to Strasburg (ph) trying to find the snow.
Whitney, how are you doing out there? It's me.
WHITNEY CASEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that was my leg. I'm in about two feet of snow right here. Come over here, Ricky (ph), if you can, so that you can see exactly how deep my foot is in this snow. Now, I am 6 feet tall, so this is my knee about right here. I'm going to try to step out of this.
Albany has received about 18 inches of snow, and in this region, there's been about 32 to 18 inches, the ninth largest snow storm in the entire region for this year.
And in addition to that, they say that there has been 20 inches on the ground. That's the largest Christmas ever. It hasn't snowed here since 1985 on Christmas.
And as you can see, the roadways behind me have been very perilous. Yesterday, we traveled up the throughway. About 100 miles of the New York throughway were closed. We were stranded, along with hundreds of other travelers that were traveling yesterday. And in addition to that, there were 18 deaths caused on the highways since Monday, because of this storm.
Now, in addition to highway travels that were perilous, the airways were also. There were three airports that were delayed. There were delays at Newark, JFK, and LaGuardia were closed here in Albany. They've been canceling flights all of this morning.
And if you weren't traveling by road or by air yesterday, you may have been sitting in your house without power. Tens of thousands of people suffered from power outages. And most people say that their power will not be back on for most of the day because it is very windy, and they may have power outages throughout the week.
Now, as you can see, what they're worried about now -- and, Daryn, this will be an education for you being from California -- they're called ground blizzards. And you can see it's pretty windy out here. They're expecting winds up to 50 miles an hour, and what that means is the snow on the ground and then also on the rooftops will swirl up and cause a visibility problem. So, that's what people have to look forward to today.
But the good news is, there is no snow that will be falling from the sky. There is a winter weather advisory here, but no snow falling from the sky, and most people will wake up to a sunny, snowy day.
Back to you, guys.
GUPTA: All right, Whitney, thank you very much. We'll be checking in with you throughout the day. Chasing the storm, our Whitney Casey.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired December 26, 2002 - 07:15 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yesterday's heavy snow storm is causing major headaches in the northeast. The snow fall broke Christmas snow fall records across much of the region.
And one of the hardest-hit areas: Albany, New York. The city is digging out, quite literally, from almost 20 inches of snow.
And our own Whitney Casey is in the middle of the mess. She's traveled from Orlando to Strasburg (ph) trying to find the snow.
Whitney, how are you doing out there? It's me.
WHITNEY CASEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that was my leg. I'm in about two feet of snow right here. Come over here, Ricky (ph), if you can, so that you can see exactly how deep my foot is in this snow. Now, I am 6 feet tall, so this is my knee about right here. I'm going to try to step out of this.
Albany has received about 18 inches of snow, and in this region, there's been about 32 to 18 inches, the ninth largest snow storm in the entire region for this year.
And in addition to that, they say that there has been 20 inches on the ground. That's the largest Christmas ever. It hasn't snowed here since 1985 on Christmas.
And as you can see, the roadways behind me have been very perilous. Yesterday, we traveled up the throughway. About 100 miles of the New York throughway were closed. We were stranded, along with hundreds of other travelers that were traveling yesterday. And in addition to that, there were 18 deaths caused on the highways since Monday, because of this storm.
Now, in addition to highway travels that were perilous, the airways were also. There were three airports that were delayed. There were delays at Newark, JFK, and LaGuardia were closed here in Albany. They've been canceling flights all of this morning.
And if you weren't traveling by road or by air yesterday, you may have been sitting in your house without power. Tens of thousands of people suffered from power outages. And most people say that their power will not be back on for most of the day because it is very windy, and they may have power outages throughout the week.
Now, as you can see, what they're worried about now -- and, Daryn, this will be an education for you being from California -- they're called ground blizzards. And you can see it's pretty windy out here. They're expecting winds up to 50 miles an hour, and what that means is the snow on the ground and then also on the rooftops will swirl up and cause a visibility problem. So, that's what people have to look forward to today.
But the good news is, there is no snow that will be falling from the sky. There is a winter weather advisory here, but no snow falling from the sky, and most people will wake up to a sunny, snowy day.
Back to you, guys.
GUPTA: All right, Whitney, thank you very much. We'll be checking in with you throughout the day. Chasing the storm, our Whitney Casey.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
