Word: washingtonization
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...votes slated for Wednesday. For what might be the first time ever, says Fred Beuttler, the House's deputy historian, the chamber's cafeteria was forced to close. Major hearings on Capitol Hill were postponed, including a congressional probe on Toyota's slew of safety recalls. Flights at Washington-area airports were grounded, Amtrak service was severely curtailed, schools were closed and mail service was suspended. Even plows were ordered off the icy roads in Washington's Maryland suburbs after administrators determined that snow removal was too treacherous a chore. (See TIME's photo-essay "Snowpocalypse, Part...
...weekend that the city's "Snowmageddon" was formidable. The National Weather Service urged drivers to stay off the roads on Wednesday morning, citing "life-threatening blizzard conditions." Swirling winds of up to 60 m.p.h. were recorded, whipping up near whiteout conditions, with visibility at Dulles International Airport outside Washington about one-tenth of a mile. Thousands of people in the region went without power. The storm, which originated in the Midwest, was barreling up the East Coast on Wednesday, battering Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City and Boston, forcing preemptive school closings and spurring officials to slash air travel. (See pictures...
Even before the latest pummeling, Washington had recorded 45 inches of snow this winter, including two of the heaviest storms ever to batter the city. Wednesday's storm - with some six inches recorded already, and snow falling at a rate of as much as two inches per hour at mid-morning - is poised to shatter a 111-year-old record for total seasonal precipitation. "No one ever has seen this much snow in Washington, D.C.," according to Mayor Adrian Fenty, who said on Wednesday that the city would ask the federal government to foot some of the cleanup costs...
Officials in Washington and Virginia said they would press to have Obama declare a federal emergency, which would unlock FEMA funds to help with the recovery. Hoyer told reporters that Congress would consider providing federal disaster assistance to help the city dig out from the "historic" storm. (See pictures of London's crippling snowfall...
...books, the onslaught also predictably wreaked havoc. In a city of mostly flat roofs not built to withstand heavy snowfall, leaks were widely reported; in Alexandria, Va., officials were searching as far away as Florida and Texas to find 30,000 tons of salt for snow removal. Near downtown Washington, trees remained strewn across intersections. The paralysis is "another example of how poorly the federal government responds in times of stress," says Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University. (See pictures of Asia's record snowfalls...