Northeast Digs Out After Storm

Northeastern states continued digging out from beneath a sheet of snow that buried cars, buckled roofs and left hundreds of thousands without power.

The historic blizzard dumped as much as three feet of snow across New England and parts of New York, killing at least nine people, including an 11-year-old boy who died of carbon-monoxide poisoning Saturday. He was helping his father shovel snow and took a break to warm up in a car.

Utilities had restored power to nearly half of the customers affected by the blizzard, the U.S. Department of Energy said Sunday.

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People on an unplowed street after the storm in Hartford, Conn., on Sunday. morning.

About 360,000 customers in eight states remained without power as of Sunday morning, the department said, down from a peak of nearly 670,000.

Massachusetts remained the worst-hit state in terms of the number of outages, with about 245,000�or 8% of customers�still without electricity.

Rhode Island had the highest percentage of customers affected, with about 73,000�or 15%�still without power on Sunday, the DOE said.

National Grid PLC estimated that most Massachusetts customers would have their power restored on Sunday. The company said the vast majority of its Rhode Island customers would have power by midnight Monday.

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A woman walked through the snow in Boston.

In Connecticut, where President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency on Sunday, about 26,000 customers were without power. Connecticut Light & Power said power would be restored to most of its customers by Sunday night.

In New York, outages affected about 14,000 customers. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo dispatched more than 410 plow trucks to hard-hit Suffolk County, parts of which were mugged by nearly three feet of snow.

As of Sunday morning, the Long Island Railroad had restored service to most branches but trains weren't running east of Ronkonkoma, Babylon and Huntington. LIRR said to expect delays and cancellations on Monday as crews move snow-removal equipment around the system.

By Sunday, Logan International Airport in Boston, where machines with 27-foot blades and blowers with wind speeds of 450 miles per hour mowed the runways, had resumed operations, as had the three major airports in the New York City area. But the storm forced more than 5,000 flight cancellations since Thursday, creating a cascade of delays and service interruptions that could last for days, according to Flightaware.com.

JetBlue Airways, the largest carrier at Logan, cancelled 713 flights in the past three days. About 44,000 customers were affected, and about half of them have been accommodated, a JetBlue spokesman said. JetBlue's first inbound flight to Boston landed at about 4:30 a.m. Sunday, and the carrier expects to ramp up operations in the afternoon and evening. "We're basically back up and running," he said.

As crews continued to clear train tracks of deep snow and downed trees, Amtrak restored limited service between New York and Boston. Service between New Haven, Conn., and Springfield, Mass., remained suspended Sunday.

The nor'easter, which meteorologists blamed on the collision of two storm systems, was a potential boon for some, including ski resorts.

"The Beast received 12 inches of Grade A powder overnight!" Killington Resort in Vermont boasted in an email to customers. "What was that? You're not here? Pack that car and tune that gear."

Travel bans expired in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, but officials on Sunday implored people to stay off the roads so snow plows could reach areas that needed to be cleared.

"Every time someone gets stuck, it prevents plows from doing their jobs and reaching areas they need to go," Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy tweeted.

Boston's transit agency said it planned to resume limited service on subways and key bus routes at 2 p.m. Sunday, after the system shut down Friday afternoon. Commuter rail service remains suspended for the day, however, as crews cleared snow off the tracks.

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority said it plans to resume regularly scheduled service Monday, but also warned customers to "expect significant delays and plan extra time for their Monday morning commute."

—Jon Kamp contributed to this article.

Write to Dan Strumpf at daniel.strumpf@dowjones.com