Over 11,000 flights were grounded over the course of several days due to the massive snowstorm that swept through the Northeast this week in the United States, with over 5,600 flights being canceled at its height. At one point, almost 98 percent of outbound flights were canceled at JFK. Boston Logan trailed closely behind. Even Newark, which is typically resilient in inclement weather, gave up. It’s possible that airlines anticipated this and had planned ahead to avoid stranding planes and crews, but the result was the same: airports and runways froze.

The snow didn’t fall lightly outside. In Nantucket, wind gusts of up to 83 miles per hour caused it to come sideways. 19 inches were recorded in Central Park. Records that had been in place since 1978 were broken when parts of Rhode Island were buried under more than three feet. There was an impression that this storm was more than just a disturbance as sanitation workers carved out slender passageways through the streets of Manhattan. It persisted.

Travelers wrapped in winter coats, sprawled across charging stations, and browsed through rebooking apps inside Newark’s Terminal C. A woman wearing a bright red scarf was sobbing quietly into her phone as she told someone, possibly a parent, that she wouldn’t be able to make it home. Half-laughing, half-resigned, a group of college students played cards on the floor. During mass cancellations, airports have an oddly sentimental tone. There’s a lingering sense of collective endurance along with frustration.

Safety over schedule was a familiar calculation for airlines. Meteorologists used the technical term “bomb cyclone” to describe the rapid drop in atmospheric pressure that intensified the snowfall and winds. As they crawled across the tarmac, de-icing trucks sprayed wings in dense streams of fluorescent light. However, visibility limited even those efforts. Effective aircraft movement was practically impossible due to white-out conditions.

Over 600,000 homes in Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Massachusetts lost electricity. Flights don’t simply stop when the power goes out; whole systems come to a complete stop. Power quietly hums in the background for everything from baggage handling to radar and runway lighting. It’s still unclear if recent infrastructure improvements have actually increased resilience or if preparedness is just not keeping up with extreme weather events.

It is more difficult to quantify the economic cost in real time. Airlines probably paid for hotel stays and ticket refunds, absorbing millions of dollars in lost revenue. Instead of seeing these disruptions as structural risks, investors appear to think they are passing fads. However, it’s difficult to avoid wondering if these “once in a decade” storms are occurring more frequently than predicted as climate patterns continue to get stronger year after year.

City officials made an effort to appear composed. Advisories were issued in place of travel bans, which were later lifted. The mayor of New York commended sanitation workers for putting in 12-hour shifts and cleaning up the streets to bring life back to normal. In the midst of controversy, public schools closed and then reopened. Some parents questioned whether it was safe for kids to trudge through knee-high drifts on sidewalks.

There were lighthearted moments. There were snowmen in Times Square. Sledders sped down the hills of Central Park. However, those images coexisted with more somber realities: emergency personnel negotiating icy roads, at least two fatalities connected to storm conditions, and fallen trees smashing cars in Maryland. Severe weather has a way of exposing vulnerability and community.

Operations at Rhode Island’s TF Green Airport came to a complete stop when runways were covered in almost 38 inches of snow. Until you picture yourself standing in that number, it seems abstract. Winds pushing against you like a physical force, snow up to waist height. Because they are built for speed and altitude, aircraft are surprisingly delicate when grounded in that environment.

Meteorologists also monitored the formation of another system over the Great Lakes even as the Northeast started to dig out. “Not so strong,” they said. But enough to make cleanup more difficult. Even a few inches more accumulation could put further strain on already overburdened operations. One governor said, “If you’ve seen one storm, you’ve seen one storm.” It was comforting. It sounded uncertain, too.

As this develops, it seems that travel, which was once promoted as smooth and frictionless, is becoming more and more vulnerable to uncontrollable forces. Real-time alerts, predictive modeling, and instant rebooking are made possible by technology. However, screens and algorithms only provide a partial solution when nature takes over.

The huge snowstorm flights that were canceled this week in the US will eventually start up again. Runways will open up. The departure boards will turn green once more. However, the disruption lasts longer than the snowfall for the thousands of people who slept in terminals or missed important events like weddings, funerals, and business deals.

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