WTEN: Albany, New York News, Weather, Sports - East Coast blizzard leaves stranded passengers racing to get home for Christmas

East Coast blizzard leaves stranded passengers racing to get home for Christmas

ALBANY, N.Y. -- The blizzard that hammered much of the East Coast is complicating plans to get home for the holidays everywhere. Nearly 5,000 flights have been canceled around the country, stranding hundreds of thousands of people who are now scrambling to book new flights.

That's not so easy to do during the peak holiday travel season.

Paulo Melo is cozying up with his laptop for a night of movies and Facebook status updates. He's spending the night at Albany International Airport.

"It's my birthday tomorrow too. So I will be here for most of the day on my birthday," says Melo, a college student from Boston.

Melo flew to Albany from Iowa early Sunday morning. His next flight home to Boston was cancelled, and he can't get out until Monday.

Skirik Tyler finally made it in to Albany from Colorado. "The lines were so long, so I ended up missing my first flight, and got a flight into Chicago late last night and found out that all the Albany flights were cancelled, so I had to stay the night in Chicago last night."

Sarah Bowers is still waiting to get home to Washington, D.C., where more snow fell in one day than ever recorded.

"We had a flight that was cancelled to Dulles. We're going to fly into National tomorrow instead," says Bowers.

Reagan National Airport finally reopened at 12:30 p.m. Sunday, after shutting down its runways nearly twenty four hours earlier.

Skies have cleared but some airports are still clearing runways and taxiways. Some folks are watching their friends' arrival times push later and later.

In the New York area alone, airlines canceled 1,200 flights this weekend at Newark, JFK, and LaGuardia. Now, it's a race to get caught up in time for Christmas.

"It's life. Nothing you can do about it," says Melo.

Most people we talked to expect to be home sometime Monday, but the lag is looking longer in busier cities. Airlines say they're scrambling to accommodate passengers, but can't promise everyone will be home for Christmas.