Megabus passengers heading to, from Pittsburgh stranded overnight by storms
Dozens of people headed to and from Pittsburgh on a pair of Megabuses were among the travelers stranded by Friday's storms.
The winter weather in the Northeast paralyzed travel, with high winds and snow toppling trees onto roadways, pulling down overhead wires for passenger trains, and canceling or diverting flights to airports up and down the coast.
One Megabus headed to Pittsburgh was stranded on westbound Interstate 80 in the Poconos starting about 1:30 p.m. Friday after a jackknifed tractor-trailer blocked all lanes. It took until noon Saturday for the bus to move again, according to Tribune-Review news partner WPXI-TV .
Sean Hughes of Megabus North America said the service "has had a challenging trip due to weather and unexpected road closures due to accidents" that didn't involve Megabus, along with bridge closures by multiple law enforcement agencies. Hughes said the Pittsburgh-bound bus was expected to arrive in early evening Saturday.
Passengers told the TV station that there were about 19 people on the bus, some of whom had gone more than 24 hours without food or water. It finally started moving again at about noon Saturday.
NOW: Megabus stuck on I-80 for almost a day is FINALLY MOVING! @WPXI pic.twitter.com/0PGiWeOhxq
— WPXIJennifer Tomazic (@JenniferTomazic) March 3, 2018
Another bus from Pittsburgh to New York also got stuck, this one headed east on I-80. The bus had left Pittsburgh about 9:15 a.m. Friday.
Been stuck on I-80 for 15 hours and counting
— Nicole DeIvernois (@ndeivernois) March 3, 2018
Karen Kedem, one of the passengers on the crowded Pittsburgh-to-New York bus, said conditions became extremely hot and uncomfortable. There was no food, water or blankets beyond what they had brought with them, cell service dropped out for a long period, cutting them off from friends and family, and their driver had seemingly been unaware of the mess they were heading into.
"This isn't a weather story, but a negligence story. ... Our driver didn't even know there was dangerous weather coming up," said Kedem, 21, a student at the University of Pittsburgh who was returning home to New York for spring break. "Even an Uber, where you're riding for five minutes, has to have water."
My girlfriend left Pittsburgh on a @megabus at 9:15AM & was supposed to arrive in NYC at 5:40PM. They've been on the bus now for 16 hours & now they're being told they won't move until 7AM when the roads open back up. Their lunch stop was at 2:30PM. They have no food or water.
— Ilana Maurer (@ilana_maurer) March 3, 2018
Kedem said her dinner was some partly melted Girl Scout cookies; she slept about an hour while the bus was stuck in the Poconos from about 5 p.m. to 8 a.m.
Kedem said they passed the still-stranded westbound bus as they got back underway but had to stop again in Columbia, N.J., Saturday morning and wait for a relief driver because the first had reached his legal limit of hours behind the wheel.
The rest stop they pulled into was closed, apparently because of a lack of electricity, so they had to rely on some snacks and water dropped off by sympathetic truckers or family members who met the bus to pick up some of the stranded passengers, Kedem said.
@megabus has people in Columbia NJ, on a bus after 24HOURS, waiting with no food or water, for a driver that was supposed to be at the location from yesterday, with no valid explanation. You're about to witness the power of a class action lawsuit!
— IG: @JAGWA876 (@JAGWA876) March 3, 2018
The bus didn't arrive in New York until Saturday afternoon.
22 hours later and I made it to NYC
— Nicole DeIvernois (@ndeivernois) March 3, 2018
Matthew Santoni is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 724-836-6660, msantoni@tribweb.com or via Twitter @msantoni.
