The U.S. Northeast started digging out on Sunday after a blizzard dumped up to 40 inches (1 meter) of snow with hurricane force winds, killing at least nine people and leaving hundreds of thousands without power.
New York City trucks plowed through residential streets, piling snow even higher at the edges and leaving thousands of motorists to dig their buried vehicles out from mountains of snow.
"I give up," Giovanni Marchenna, 52, of Manhattan said with a laugh.
"Looks like I'll be taking the subway to work until the snow melts," he added, noting he spent more than an hour shoveling snow.
On Monday, additional severe weather may bring more misery, with freezing rain and more snow predicted that would make the trip home for evening commuters even more difficult.
"It will make it a little more hazardous and a little more slick on the roads," said Kenneth James, a National Weather Service meteorologist based in Maryland.
In Boston, Mayor Tom Menino canceled school on Monday after touring neighborhoods throughout the city, where 2 feet of snow fell.
"Our No. 1 priority today is getting to the side streets," he said, saying it was the fifth-deepest snowfall ever in the city.