Gleneely man in New York snowstorm

A massive blizzard blanketed the United States east coast in snow over the weekend, effectively shutting down Washington DC and New York where 26.9 inches-just over two feet-of snow fell.

The storm claimed at least 19 lives and over 60 million people were affected.

Samuel Hutchinson currently lives on 91st and 1st in Upper East side Manhattan, having moved over there through his work as a software consultant with Newry company ‘First Derivatives.’

The 22-year-old told the ‘Journal’ how people came together to help each other out during the snowfall and revealed he and his friends spent an entire day sleighing in Central Park using a laundry basket!

Samuel said he was in his ‘local pub, Biddy’s’ on Friday night when the first snow began to fall around 1am. He said everyone was “excited” and within the hour most of the patrons were “outside flinging snowballs at each other.”

By the next morning, the city was covered in almost two feet of snow, which was still falling heavily. Samuel was looking out at it through the window when he saw a “lovely BMW sports car” stuck in the snow.

As Samuel says, “being from Donegal you don’t leave someone stuck in the snow,” so he spent half an hour helping a lady to dig her car out with a snow shovel. Not long after, news came through that a driving ban was in place.

Making the best of the situation, Samuel and his housemate Josh Zeldin, friends Nicole McClean and Sean Hagan from Newry and their son Shea (3) went to Central Park where they sleighed using a laundry basket.

In a lovely act of kindness, a “nice American man” later came up to them and after finding out they were from Ireland, gave them his sleigh.

Samuel said: “He said you can have this, just drop it back at my apartment after, so that’s what we did.”

When Samuel spoke to the ‘Journal’ yesterday, he said the snowploughs had been out all night and the roads were “pretty well cleared up.” He added that while maybe an “inch remained” it was “tightly packed in and easy to drive on.” However, many cars were still stuck in parking spaces and being increasingly locked in due to the snow ploughs driving past.