A ferocious storm system pummeled the Northeast for a second day on Saturday, bringing high winds, deep snow, and leaving more than 600,000 homes and businesses without power, mostly in New England.
After a day of pelting wet snow, five states — New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island — had declared states of emergency, and Massachusetts had banned vehicles from every road in the state. Major highways like Interstate 93 were almost completely abandoned; downtown Boston, in blizzard conditions, was a ghost town lost in a swirl of howling winds and snow. Dozens of cars that had gotten stuck on the Long Island Expressway Friday night remained there Saturday morning, unable to pass each other and virtually trapped by mounds of plowed snow.
The storm moved with full force into New England on Saturday, with record-breaking snowfall amounts a possibility even as the storm started to leave the New York area. Forecasters said the storm would continue to bear down on New England through Saturday afternoon and winds could reach 75 miles per hour, leaving behind a fresh white blanket perhaps three feet thick.
In New York City, where the National Weather Service had reports of up to 8 inches of snow in Central Park by 3 a.m. Saturday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg told people to stay home and warned them not to “panic buy” gasoline because the supply was plentiful. But the memory of Hurricane Sandy in October was still so raw that many across the region went on buying sprees anyway, emptying store shelves and filling extra containers of gasoline in addition to their car tanks.
“I don’t think it’s going to be as bad as they’re saying, but I said that with Sandy, too,” said Lavel Samuels, 42, as she filled her tank at a gas station in Far Rockaway, Queens. “I’m filling up based on my experience with Sandy, in case there’s no gas on Sunday or Monday.”
But New England was bearing the brunt of the storm as heavy snows caused downed power lines throughout the region. By Saturday, 380,000 power failures were reported in Massachusetts, and more than 180,000 were reported in Rhode Island. And the Pilgrim nuclear power plant in Plymouth, Mass., shut down because of the storm.
Marcy Reed, president of National Grid, said failures could last several days because repairs would not begin until the storm ended and would require unearthing power lines buried under mounds of snow.
Some, though welcomed the heavy snowfall, particularly skiers who have bemoaned almost two seasons of barren slopes.
“These aren’t flakes falling from the sky; these are dollar bills,” said Ed Carrier as he sat in a coffee shop in Portsmouth, N.H., and envisioned the boon for winter sports. Staff members at the Thirsty Moose Taphouse nearby said they were determined to stay open through the storm until their regular closing time at 1 a.m. (except in the case of a power failure), and even offered storm-related drink specials: $3 porters and stouts, as long as it was snowing. “It’s just a little bit of snow,” said the hostess, Kim Lovely. “Mother Nature’s just brushing out her dandruff.”
But in most cities and towns, Friday was largely a day of preparing for the worst. With hurricane-force winds, the National Weather Service expects flooding along the Atlantic Coast that could affect up to eight million people.
In Massachusetts, Gov. Deval Patrick took the unusual step of ordering all vehicles off all roads, not just state roads, by 4 p.m. Friday, well before the brunt of the storm had hit. Violators could face up to a year in prison and a fine, though exceptions were made for emergency workers, members of the news media and anyone with a snowplow.
“Two or three feet of snow is a profoundly different kind of storm than we have dealt with,” the governor said from the state’s emergency bunker in Framingham. Officials recalled only one previous such traffic ban, in the aftermath of the Blizzard of 1978, when more than 27 inches of snow paralyzed the region, forcing people to abandon their cars in the middle of roadways.
Maine declared a partial emergency, allowing it to suspend federal transportation rules, extend worker hours and bring in extra crews from Canada to assist with storm damage repair.
Thousands of flights were grounded Friday and Saturday, snarling the nation’s air transportation system through the weekend.
Boston’s transit system, including subway, buses and commuter rail lines, suspended service at 3:30 p.m. Friday, allowing first-shift workers to get home and second-shift workers to get to work. The city inaugurated its SnowOps Viewer, an online portal that allows viewers to see where all snowplows are in real time.
Storm’s Heavy Snow and High Winds Lash at the Northeast
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Storm’s Heavy Snow and High Winds Lash at the Northeast
