Washington shuts down government

In Washington, where a traffic ban remained in effect, the recovery got off to a slower start, with the entire metropolitan transit system closed through Sunday.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management said federal government offices in the Washington area would be shut down on Monday, along with local government offices and public schools in the District of Columbia and its Maryland and Virginia suburbs. Virginia and Maryland state offices also were ordered closed.

Even so, many people were out in the street. Some skied and snowboarded down the steps of the Lincoln Memorial until security officials moved them on.

The monster weather system unofficially dubbed Winter Storm Jonas left at least 20 dead in several states, with most of the fatalities the result of traffic accidents.

The entire region seemed to breathe a sigh of relief that the worst was over.
“For us, snow is like a normal winter,” said Viola Rogacka, 21, a fashion mode

l from Poland, walking with a friend through New York’s Times Square. “It’s how it should look like.”

Theaters reopened on Broadway after the blizzard forced them to go dark on Saturday on the recommendation of New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.

“We still have some areas that we have to do a lot more work on. But we’ve come through it pretty well,” de Blasio said on ABC’s Sunday program “This Week”. “We think we’ll be broadly up and running again at the city tomorrow.”

Midtown Manhattan sprang back to life on a bright and sunny Sunday as residents and tourists rejoiced in the warming sunlight, digging out buried cars, heading to reopened Broadway shows and cavorting in massive drifts left by New York City’s second-biggest snowstorm on record.