This account of 96 terrible hours at JFK airport caused by terrible, but not unusually terrible, winter weather reminds us how unresilient our modern infrastructure systems can be, and how unresilient our under-maintained and investment-starved U.S. infrastructure is in particular.

By Sunday, after half a foot of snow, gale force winds, and three days of single-digit temperatures, JFK had set a new standard for air travel horrors: Travelers waited for hours or days for their flights, sitting on scavenged sheets of cardboard in their socks, fuming to nearby reporters and farflung Twitter followers. Outside, the scene was more apocalyptic. Aircraft crowded the tarmac, too many of them for the gates. Passengers were left in planes for as long as seven hours after landing. And that was a full day and a half after the cyclone bomb had dissipated.