Several lawmakers are bringing special guests to President Obama's State of the Union address Tuesday night in order to make a statement.
Several lawmakers are bringing guests to help underscore the importance of gun control. More than 20 House Democrats are bringing guests who have been personally affected by gun violence. A bipartisan pair of Arizona lawmakers, meanwhile, will host former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and her husband Mark Kelly.
Other lawmakers are bringing guests tied to issues like immigration and voting rights.
Below is a partial list of officials and the guests they are bringing. CBS News will update the list as more guests are confirmed:
First Lady Michelle Obama:
Lt. Brian Murphy, who was wounded while responding to the Sikh Temple shooting last August in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. He was struck by 15 bullets.
Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton and Nathaniel Pendleton Sr., parents of 15-year-old Hadiya who was killed in a Chicago park.
Desiline Victor, a 103-year-old Florida woman who waited in line for several hours to vote.
Tim Cook, CEO of Apple.
House Minority Leader Pelosi:
Mother and daughter from Newtown, Conn. The 4th grader sent Pelosi a letter asking for her support to strengthen gun laws in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Rep. Ron Barber, D-Ariz.:
Former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and her husband Mark Kelly
Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Texas:
Musician and gun advocate Ted Nugent
Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn.:
First Selectwoman Pat Llodra, a Republican and the Chief Executive Officer of Newtown
Newtown Detectives Jason Frank and Dan McAnaspie, two of several first responders who rushed to Sandy Hook Elementary School on the day of the tragedy
Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill.:
Undocumented immigrant Gabino Sanchez. The South Carolina husband and father of two U.S. citizen children is fighting deportation. Sanchez entered the country when he was 15 years old and has been working and living peacefully in the U.S. ever since.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.:
Josh Stepakoff, who in 1999 was shot at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, Calif. Stepakoff, now 20, is a student at California State University Northridge.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J.:
Matt Gross, a New Jersey native who was shot in the head in 1997, at the age of 27. Gross was one of several victims wounded during a shooting attack on the observation deck of the Empire State Building.
More House Democrats bringing guests affected by gun violence:
North Korea says it has successfully tested a miniaturized nuclear device Tuesday, according to state media.
A large tremor measured at magnitude 4.9 was detected in North Korea and governments in the region scrambled to determine whether it was a nuclear test that the North Korean regime has vowed to carry out despite international protests.
Official state media said the test was conducted in a safe manner and is aimed at coping with "outrageous" U.S. hostility that "violently" undermines the North's peaceful, sovereign rights to launch satellites. Unlike previous tests, North Korea used a powerful explosive nuclear bomb that is smaller and lighter, state media reported.
President Obama called the test "a highly provocative act" in a statement Tuesday morning.
"The danger posed by North Korea's threatening activities warrants further swift and credible action by the international community. The United States will also continue to take steps necessary to defend ourselves and our allies,"Obama said.
"The United States remains vigilant in the face of North Korean provocations and steadfast in our defense commitments to allies in the region," he added.
The U.N. Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on North Korea's nuclear test later this morning.
Suspicions were aroused when the U.S. Geological Survey said it had detected a magnitude 4.9 earthquake Tuesday in North Korea.
The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization told ABC News, "We confirm that a suspicious seismic event has taken place in North Korea."
North Korea Threatens More Nuclear Tests, Warns U.S. Watch Video
"The event shows clear explosion-like characteristics and its location is roughly congruent with the 2006 and 2009 DPRK (North Korea) nuclear tests," said Tibor Toth, executive secretary of the organization.
"If confirmed as a nuclear test, this act would constitute a clear threat to international peace and security, and challenges efforts made to strengthen global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation," Toth said in a statement on the organization's web site.
Kim Min-seok, a South Korean Defense Ministry spokesman, told reporters that North Korea informed United States and China that it intended to carry out another nuclear test, according to the AP. But U.S. officials did not respond to calls from ABC News Monday night.
The seismic force measured 6 to 7 kilotons, according to South Korea.
"Now that's an absolutely huge explosion by conventional terms. It's a smallish, but not tiny explosion by nuclear terms. It's about two-thirds the size of the bomb that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima," James Acton, a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told ABC News.
North Korea threatened in January to carry out a "higher-level" test following the successful Dec. 12 launch of a long range rocket. At the time, North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un said his country's weapons tests were specifically targeting the United States.
The suspicious tremor comes just hours before President Obama is to give the State of the Union address, and it marks the first diplomatic test in the region for new Secretary of State John Kerry.
Also, South Korea's new president, Park Geun-hye, is scheduled to be sworn in on Feb. 25. One of North Korea's biggest holidays, Kim Jong-il's birthday, falls on Feb. 16.
China, North Korea's main ally in the region, has warned North Korea it would cut back severely needed food assistance if it carried out a test. Each year China donates approximately half of the food North Korea lacks to feed its people and half of all oil the country consumes.
Both of North Korea's previous tests used a plutonium-based method for making bomb fuel. The first was deemed a failure, the second only slightly less so. If the most recent test used HEU (highly enriched uranium), a far more difficult-to-detect method of producing bomb fuel, it would be a significant and worrisome step forward for North Korea's weapons program.
Tech-savvy campaigns get mixed results, as the Arab Spring shows (Image: William Dupuy/Picturetank)
Gavin Newsom's Citizenville shows that technology can empower people, but the book fails to explore deep-rooted problems within the democratic process
THERE'S a lot of crime in Oakland, California. But until a few years ago, citizens had little way of assessing the scale of the problem. Then Michal Migurski hurt his back. It was Christmas 2006 and Migurski, a computer programmer, was stuck at home in Oakland, looking for ways to use his time until his back healed. He knew about the area's crime problem and decided to create an online map showing where and when crimes had been committed - something local government had failed to do.
Migurski's crimespotting.org website gets enthusiastic coverage in Gavin Newsom's Citizenville, a homage to technology's ability to empower people and reform government. If committed and skilled citizens like Migurski can access official data, for example, they can create services that governments don't have time for or aren't well equipped to provide. The internet has already disrupted a swathe of industries, from journalism to telecommunications. Citizenville is packed with examples that show that it is government's turn.
For the book, Newsom - California's lieutenant governor - talked to a host of Silicon Valley luminaries, from Google founder Sergey Brin to Tim O'Reilly, tech publisher and one of the most high-profile advocates of the idea that technology can transform government. The result is a 239-page tribute to what the valley does best: suggest radical and scalable ways to do things better.
Unfortunately, Newsom's unfettered enthusiasm for the power of the internet and smartphones to transform social and governmental problems makes for a shallow read. Take his analysis of FarmVille, the incredibly successful Facebook game in which players run virtual farms. Why couldn't a similar game be used to help govern a real city, he asks? It's an intriguing idea, based in part on the argument put forward by Jane McGonigal, a game designer, that gaming can be used to solve real-world problems.
But doesn't FarmVille's appeal have much to do with its lack of real-life responsibility? Newsom only touches on this before rushing off to his next tech-inspired solution.
It's a frustrating approach because Newsom was mayor of San Francisco between 2003 and 2010, and rolled out some bold tech-based reforms during his tenure, so he is well placed to discuss the benefits and difficulties of applying technology to governance.
Some of the most interesting parts of Citizenville address ideas that did not work, like radical transparency. After becoming mayor, Newsom decided to post his diary on the web, until his chief of staff pointed out that fundraising meetings would be visible. Newsom relented, accepting that voters don't like to see politicians asking for money.
It's a great example of how technology is just part of the reform equation. To truly empower, technology will have to deal with many entrenched problems, ranging from the shameless distortions that most elected officials spout to the huge number of alienated people who don't register to vote. Any proper assessment of technology's power to change needs to do more than consider the solutions it offers. The impoverished democratic process in the US will not improve until the causes of this situation are part of the discussion.
Broader initiatives exist, of course. Political scientists who study how misinformation spreads have teamed up with technologists to create systems for reining in erroneous memes, like the claim that Barack Obama is not a US citizen. Public health experts are studying not just the internet's ability to communicate health information but also the extent to which that information changes behaviour. It is this kind of thinking, which accepts that technology is only part of the solution, that is missing from Citizenville. I was left wishing that Newsom had focused on just a few of the issues he writes about, and had taken his research beyond the confines of Silicon Valley.
This article appeared in print under the headline "There is no app for political reform"
Book information: Citizenville: How to take the town square digital and reinvent government by Gavin Newsom and Lisa Dickey Penguin $25.95
ALLAHABAD, India : Survivors of a stampede that killed 36 people at India's Kumbh Mela on Monday blamed the tragedy on baton-charging police and the slow response of medics as the massive festival's chief organiser resigned.
The crush at a train station on Sunday evening at Allahabad marked a tragic end to the most auspicious day of the 55-day Hindu festival in the state of Uttar Pradesh which had drawn some 30 million people.
Local officials said the railings on a bridge at the station had given way, while witnesses said police had charged the crowd with heavy wooden sticks known as lathis and triggered panic among pilgrims leaving the world's biggest gathering.
"I saw the police pushing the crowd and they were ... beating the pilgrims," Abhijit Das, a 29-year-old pilgrim from West Bengal who was at the station when the disaster happened, told AFP.
There was also criticism of the response to the disaster, with relatives recounting how the emergency services took hours to reach the scene. At least 10 corpses wrapped in white sheets could be seen on a platform several hours later.
Among the victims was an eight-year-old girl called Muskaan whose distraught parents said she had died while waiting nearly two hours for help.
"Our daughter still had a pulse. Had the doctors reached in time she would have been saved, but she died before our eyes," Bedi Lal, the child's father, told the NDTV news channel.
Speaking from his hospital bed after suffering leg injuries, Shashi Bhaduri recounted the mayhem at the scene.
"Suddenly there were at least a hundred people on top of me. My legs are so badly injured that I cannot even lift them now," he said.
Apart from Muskaan, the dead included 26 women and nine men.
After the state government ordered an investigation into the tragedy, one of the driving forces behind the festival said he was resigning as a matter of honour.
"I have resigned as the chairman of the festival committee," said Mohammad Azam Khan, who is also a cabinet minister in the state.
"Although the stampede happened beyond the scope of my jurisdiction, I am deeply disturbed and step down on moral grounds," he told AFP.
Hindus believe a dip in the sacred waters of the River Ganges cleanses them of their sins. This year's Mela is enormous even by previous standards, with astrologers saying a planetary alignment seen once every 147 years made it particularly auspicious.
Police had been stretched in controlling the vast crowds as they reached their peak on Sunday, with officials saying the numbers had passed the 30 million mark by the evening.
A spokesman for the state government said the crush began after joints broke on railings attached to the bridge.
Railways Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal attributed the accident to the sheer weight of numbers at the train station.
"There are limitations of a railway system," he told reporters. "Even if we have trains at 10-minute intervals, managing three crore (30 million) people may not be possible."
Asked about the police tactics, the minister said: "We have no evidence of lathi-charge."
The Kumbh Mela, which began last month and ends in March, takes place every 12 years in Allahabad while smaller events are held every three years in other locations around India.
In 2003, 45 people died in a stampede during the festival in the western town of Nasik.
At the Kumbh Mela on Sunday, 30,000 volunteers and 7,000 police were on duty, urging pilgrims to take one short bath and then leave the waters to make space for the flow of humanity that stretched for kilometres.
The event has its origins in Hindu mythology, which describes how a few drops of the nectar of immortality fell on the four places that host the festival - Allahabad, Nasik, Ujjain and Haridwar.
An official says investigators are pursuing strong leads
Six Spanish women were allegedly raped
Acapulco, Mexico (CNN) -- Mexican authorities are holding five suspects in connection with the alleged rapes of six Spanish tourists in Acapulco, Guerrero state Gov. Angel Aguirre Rivero said Sunday.
The state attorney general has not yet released any information on the suspects or where they're being held, prompting demonstrations by family members concerned about their whereabouts.
Fifty investigators have been dedicated to the case.
The six women were among 14 people victimized by hooded gunmen who burst into a beach bungalow in the resort town before dawn February 4. There are seven suspects between the ages of 20 and 30, lead investigator Marcos Juarez said.
In addition to the rapes, the men stole cell phones, iPads and tennis shoes from the victims, investigators said.
Investigators believe the victims bought drugs from one or more of the suspects a day or two earlier, and that the victims knew the suspects, Juarez said last week.
The Spanish nationals range from ages 20 to 34 and are under the protection of Mexican authorities in Mexico City.
Rape case in Mexican resort city puts violence back in the spotlight
Seven men who were with the group were tied up with cell phone cables and bikini straps while the gunmen assaulted the six women, officials said.
A seventh woman, a Mexican, was spared because of her nationality, Guerrero state Attorney General Martha Garzon said in a radio interview Wednesday.
"She has said that she identified herself to the men and asked them not to rape her," Garzon told Radio Formula. "And they told her that she had 'passed the test' by being Mexican, and from that point they don't touch her."
The gunmen's motive was robbery and "to have some fun," as they saw it, Garzon said. They do not appear to be a part of organized crime, officials said.
Military checkpoints have been set up to apprehend the suspects.
As they sift through evidence, investigators have cordoned off the area around the bungalow, which is in Playa Encantada.
Last year, the city of Acapulco attracted half a million tourists -- most of them Mexicans.
Mexico's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the Spanish tourists received consular aid after the incident.
The U.S. State Department says "resort areas and tourist destinations in Mexico generally do not see the levels of drug-related violence and crime reported in the border region and in areas along major trafficking routes."
But the agency adds that resort city bars, including those in Acapulco, can be "havens for drug dealers and petty criminals."
Salomon Kaufman reported from Acapulco, and Jessica King reported from Atlanta.
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NEWPORT, R.I. As electricity returns and highways reopen, Northeast residents are getting back to their weekday routines following the massive snowstorm that had millions digging out from New York to Maine.
But the routine for some New Englanders will be disrupted by school and workplace closings, while residents of New York's Long Island anticipate the reopening of a major roadway. For some, there's also a new worry: the danger of roof collapses as rain and warmer weather melt snow.
The storm that slammed into the region with up to three feet of snow was blamed for at least 15 deaths in the Northeast and Canada, and brought some of the highest accumulations ever recorded.
Still, coastal areas were largely spared catastrophic damage despite being lashed by strong waves and hurricane-force wind gusts at the height of the storm.
Hundreds of people, their homes without heat or electricity, were forced to take refuge in emergency shelters set up in schools or other places.
61 Photos
Powerful blizzard descends on Northeast
Utility crews, some brought in from as far away as Georgia, Oklahoma and Quebec, raced to restore power. By early Monday, region-wide outages had dropped from some 650,000 in eight states at their highest to 149,970 -- more than 126,000 of them in Massachusetts, where officials said some of the outages might linger until Tuesday.
"For all the complaining everyone does, people really came through," said Rich Dinsmore, 65, of Newport, R.I., who was staying at a Red Cross shelter set up in a middle school in Middletown after the power went out in his home on Friday.
Dinsmore, who has emphysema, was first brought by ambulance to a hospital after the medical equipment he relies on failed when the power went out and he had difficulty breathing.
Play Video
Northeast sees record snow fall
"The police, the fire department, the state, the Red Cross, the volunteers, it really worked well," said the retired radio broadcaster and Army veteran.
President Obama declared a state of emergency for Connecticut, allowing federal aid to be used in recovery.
CBS News correspondent Miguel Bojorquez reports that Hamden, Conn., about 80 miles from New York City, got the deepest snow: 40 inches. The blizzard dumped five inches of snow per hour there for some time.
Driving bans were lifted and flights resumed at major airports in the region that had closed during the storm, though many flights were still canceled Sunday. Public transit schedules were being restored.
The Boston-area public transportation system, which shut down on Friday afternoon, was expected to resume full service on Monday, albeit with delays.
Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority (MBTA) General Manager Beverly Scott, speaking at a Sunday afternoon press conference, noted that snow accumulation, downed tree limbs and other damage from high winds and the overall age of the transit system made restoration challenging, reports CBS Boston station WBZ.
The Metro-North Railroad expected to resume much of its train service on its New York and Connecticut routes while the Long Island Rail Road said commuters could expect a nearly normal schedule.
"A lot of progress has been made," said Salvatore Arena, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates Metro-North.
Some public schools canceled classes on Monday, including in Boston, Providence and on Long Island, while local governments in some areas told non-essential workers to take the day off.
On eastern Long Island, the harrowing images from New York's slice of the massive snowstorm -- people stranded overnight, cars abandoned on long stretches of drift-covered highways -- were slowly erased Sunday as hundreds of snowplows and heavy equipment descended to try to help clear the way for Monday's commute.
Long Island was slammed with as much as 30 inches of snow, which shut down roads, including the Long Island Expressway. A 27-mile stretch of the road was closed Sunday and early Monday for snow-removal work.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said more than a third of all the state's snow-removal equipment was sent to the area, including more than 400 plow trucks and more than 100 snow blowers, loaders and backhoes.
"The massive amount of snow left behind effectively shut down the entire region," Cuomo said.
On Sunrise Highway, which runs parallel to the Long Island Expressway, Dennis Lawrence, of Bellport, N.Y., had already spent 90 minutes digging out the car he had abandoned and had at least another 30-60 minutes to go on Sunday. He left it there Friday after getting stuck on his way home from his job in New York City.
"The car was all over the place, it just slid over and wouldn't move," the 54-year-old elevator mechanic said. "I finally decided today to come and get it."
Boston recorded 24.9 inches of snow, making it the fifth-largest storm in the city since records were kept. The city was appealing to the state and private contractors for more front-end loaders and other heavy equipment to clear snow piles that were clogging residential streets.
The National Weather Service was forecasting rain and warmer temperatures in the region on Monday, which could begin melting some snow but also add considerable weight to snow already piled on roofs, posing the danger of collapse. Of greatest concern were flat or gently-sloped roofs and officials said people should try to clear them -- but only if they could do so safely.
"We don't recommend that people, unless they're young and experienced, go up on roofs," said Peter Judge, spokesman for the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency.
In Middlefield, Conn., two cows were killed when the roof of a barn gave way under the weight of heavy snow, one of two such incidents in the state that prompted agriculture officials to issue an advisory to farmers.
Officials also continued to warn of carbon monoxide dangers in the wake of the storm.
In Boston, two people died Saturday after being overcome by carbon monoxide while sitting in running cars, including a teenager who went into the family car to stay warm while his father shoveled snow. The boy's name was not made public. In a third incident, two children were hospitalized but expected to recover. In Webster, a 60-year-old off-duty member of the Worcester Fire Department died Saturday after suffering a heart attack while clearing snow at his home.
A fire department spokesman said in each case, the tailpipes of the cars were clogged by snow.
In Maine, the Penobscot County Sheriff's office said it recovered the body of a 75-year-old man who died after the pickup he was driving struck a tree and plunged into the Penobscot River during the storm. Investigators said Gerald Crommett apparently became disoriented while driving in the blinding snow.
Christopher Mahood, 23, of Germantown, N.Y., died after his tractor went off his driveway while he was plowing snow Friday night and rolled down a 15-foot embankment.
In Massachusetts, eight teams were formed to assess damage from flooding along the state's coastline, with the hardest hit-areas including historic Plymouth and portions of Cape Cod.
"Considering the severity of the storm, the amount of snow and the wind, we've come through this pretty well," Gov. Deval Patrick told the CBS News broadcast "Face The Nation" Sunday after meeting with local officials in Plymouth.
The U.S. Postal Service said that mail delivery that was suspended in the six New England states, as well as parts of New York and New Jersey, because of the snowstorm would resume Monday, where it is safe to do so.
FOR most of us, brushing our teeth is just a tedious part of the daily grind. But for people with dementia or learning difficulties, such tasks can be difficult. They could soon gain more independence thanks to an AI designed by Christian Peters at Bielefeld University in Germany and his colleagues.
Peters has already come up with a system that guides people when washing their hands. Brushing teeth is more complicated because it involves many steps - such as putting toothpaste on the brush, filling a glass with water or rinsing the mouth.
The TEBRA system uses a video camera to monitor someone brushing their teeth and checks that each step happens at the right time. It prompts them via a screen on the washstand if they forget a step or if they get stuck. The idea is not to dictate a routine, but to adapt to that of the user, says Peters.
TEBRA is being tested at a care home in Bielefeld for people with learning disabilities. Caregivers there reported that the system was less distracting for some people than a human carer. The work will be presented at the International Conference on Health Informatics in Barcelona, Spain, next week. Peters also plans to adapt his system to tasks such as shaving.
This article appeared in print under the headline "Time to rinse! An AI to help you clean your teeth"
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PARIS: Six major French retailers have withdrawn foods provided by producers Findus and Comigel over fears they may contain horsemeat, the FCD retail association said on Sunday.
Retailers Auchan, Casino, Carrefour, Cora, Monoprix and Picard have pulled the prepared products, including pasta dishes with meat sauce, shepherd's pie and moussaka, from their shelves, the association said in a statement.
It said the withdrawal was the result of a "labelling non-compliance in regards to the nature of the meat" in the products.
"The retailers are following the investigations carried out by suppliers with the greatest attention and waiting for the results of public inquiries," the statement said, noting that French authorities had indicated there was no health risk from the products.
Prepared foods have been pulled from the shelves in Britain, France and Sweden after it emerged that frozen food companies had been using horsemeat in products labelled as containing beef.
Findus has lodged a legal complaint in France after evidence showed the presence of horsemeat in its supply chain "was not accidental", while a French meat-processing firm said it would sue its Romanian supplier.
FARMINGVILLE, N.Y. Stranded for hours on a snow-covered road, Priscilla Arena prayed, took out a sheet of loose-leaf paper and wrote what she thought might be her last words to her husband and children.
She told her 9 1/2-year-old daughter, Sophia, she was "picture-perfect beautiful." And she advised her 5 ?-year-old son, John: "Remember all the things that mommy taught you. Never say you hate someone you love. Take pride in the things you do, especially your family. ... Don't get angry at the small things; it's a waste of precious time and energy. Realize that all people are different, but most people are good. "
"My love will never die — remember, always," she added.
Arena, who was rescued in an Army canvas truck after about 12 hours, was one of hundreds of drivers who spent a fearful, chilly night stuck on highways in a blizzard that plastered New York's Long Island with more than 30 inches of snow, its ferocity taking many by surprise despite warnings to stay off the roads.
Even plows were mired in the snow or blocked by stuck cars, so emergency workers had to resort to snowmobiles to try to reach motorists. Four-wheel-drive vehicles, tractor-trailers and a couple of ambulances could be seen stranded along the roadway and ramps of the Long Island Expressway. Stuck drivers peeked out from time to time, running their cars intermittently to warm up as they waited for help.
With many still stranded hours after the snow stopped, Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged other communities to send plows to help dig out in eastern Long Island, which took the state's hardest hit by far in the massive Northeast storm.
In Connecticut, where the storm dumped more than 3 feet of snow in some places, the National Guard rescued about 90 stranded motorists, taking a few to hospitals with hypothermia.
51 Photos
Powerful blizzard descends on Northeast
The scenes came almost exactly two years after a blizzard marooned at least 1,500 cars and buses on Chicago's iconic Lake Shore Drive, leaving hundreds of people shivering in their vehicles for as long as 12 hours and questioning why the city didn't close the crucial thoroughfare earlier.
Cuomo and other officials were similarly asked why they didn't act to shut down major highways in Long Island in advance of the storm, especially given the sprawling area's reputation for gridlock. The expressway is often called "the world's longest parking lot."
"The snow just swallowed them up. It came down so hard and so fast," explained Suffolk County Executive Steven Bellone.
"That's not an easy call," added Cuomo, who noted that people wanted to get home and that officials had warned them to take precautions because the worst of the snow could start by the evening rush hour. Flashing highway signs underscored the message ahead of time: "Heavy Snow Expected. Avoid PM Travel!"
"People need to act responsibly in these situations," Cuomo said.
But many workers didn't have the option of taking off early Friday, Arena noted. The 41-year-old sales account manager headed home from an optical supply business in Ronkonkoma around 4 p.m. She soon found her SUV stuck along a road in nearby Farmingville.
"Even though we would dig ourselves out and push forward, the snow kept piling, and therefore we all got stuck, all of us," she recalled later at Brookhaven Town Hall, where several dozen stranded motorists were taken after being rescued. Many others opted to stay with their cars.
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Getting travel back to normal after blizzard
Richard Ebbrecht left his Brooklyn chiropractic office around 3 p.m. for his home in Middle Island, about 60 miles away, calculating that he could make the drive home before the worst of the blizzard set in. He was wrong.
As the snow came rushing down faster than he'd foreseen, he got stuck six or seven times on the expressway and on other roads. Drivers began helping each other shovel and push, he said, but to no avail. He finally gave up and spent the night in his car on a local thoroughfare, only about two miles from his home.
"I could run my car and keep the heat on and listen to the radio a little bit," he said.
He walked home around at 8 a.m., leaving his car.
Late-shifters including Wayne Jingo had little choice but to risk it if they wanted to get home. By early afternoon, he'd been stuck in his pickup truck alongside the Long Island Expressway for nearly 12 hours.
He'd left his job around midnight as a postal worker at Kennedy Airport and headed home to Medford, about 50 miles east. He was at an exit in Ronkonkoma — almost home — around 1:45 a.m. when another driver came barreling at him westbound, the wrong way, he said. Jingo swerved to avoid the oncoming car, missed the exit and ended up stuck on the highway's grass shoulder.
He rocked the truck back and forth to try to free it, but it only sank down deeper into the snow and shredded one of his tires. He called 911. A police officer came by at 9:30 a.m. and said he would send a tow truck.
At 1 p.m. Saturday, Jingo was still waiting.
"I would have been fine if I didn't have to swerve," he said.
In Middle Island, a Wal-Mart remained unofficially open long past midnight to accommodate more than two dozen motorists who were stranded on nearby roads.
"We're here to mind the store, but we can't let people freeze out there," manager Jerry Greek told Newsday.
Officials weren't aware of any deaths among the stranded drivers, Cuomo said. Suffolk County police said no serious injuries had been reported among stuck motorists, but officers were still systematically checking stranded vehicles late Saturday afternoon.
While the expressway eventually opened Saturday, about 30 miles of the highway was to be closed again Sunday for snow removal.
Susan Cassara left her job at a Middle Island day care center around 6:30 p.m., after driving some of the children home because their parents couldn't get there to pick them up.
She got stuck on one road until about 2:30 a.m. Then a plow helped her get out — but she got stuck again, she said. Finally, an Army National Guardsman got to her on a snowmobile after 4 a.m.
"It was so cool. Strapped on, held on and came all the way here" to the makeshift shelter at the Brookhaven Town Hall, she said. "Something for my bucket list."
