A massive blizzard wreaked havoc as it crawled up the East Coast yesterday and threatened to blanket New York City with up to a foot-and-a-half of snow by tonight.
Heavy accumulation throughout the region closed airports, shut down businesses and prevented President Bush from flying back to the White House from Camp David by helicopter.
The governors of New Jersey, Delaware and West Virginia declared a state of emergency yesterday because of the storm, which is the biggest in the East this year, and possibly the biggest since the Blizzard of ’96.
New York City is expected to get hit with the heaviest of the snow and treacherous winds today.
Shortly before 10 p.m. last night, the National Weather Service issued a blizzard warning for the entire tristate area, calling for wind gusts of up to 40 mph.
“This storm is going to be referred to as ‘The Blizzard of ’03,'” said Kari Chessario, a meteorologist with the AccuWeather forecasting service. “This is a humongous storm.”
Or, storms.
Chessario said the slow-moving blizzard was formed from two separate storms, one starting in the deep South that swept over the Tennessee Valley and hooked up with another big storm that was moving up the Atlantic coast.
“They’re coming together and pulling together all the moisture off the Atlantic Ocean,” she said.
A storm of this hybrid’s size is a “once every 10 years occurrence,” she said.
The blizzard is expected to slowly move up to Boston and northern New England by early tonight before heading out to sea.
At one point yesterday, the storm was spread out over an area ranging from Missouri to New Jersey.
In parts of Maryland, snow was falling at a rate of up to 4 inches per hour.
In Washington, D.C., the storm shut down monuments and museums and led to the closure of nearby Baltimore-Washington International and Reagan National airports.
Amtrak stopped running its passenger trains between Washington and Richmond, Va.
And Bush had to be driven over snow-covered roads for 2 ½ hours, instead of taking his helicopter.
Greg Hannigan, a Hagerstown, Md., resident, walked through the snow to get to church, only to find he was the one person who bothered making the trip.
“When Catholics don’t show up for church, you know it’s a bad storm,” Hannigan said.
In New Jersey, officials ordered the speed limit on highways reduced to 35 mph.
At Philadelphia’s airport, most flights were canceled by the afternoon, and in Delaware, the governor banned non-essential travel.
Several storm-related deaths were reported in Illinois, Nebraska and West Virginia.
In Iowa, a person whose car was stuck on railroad tracks by drifting snow died when a train plowed into the vehicle.
Other cars – “too many to count” – were stranded in ditches after sliding off roads in Iowa, said Lt. Rob Hansen of the State Patrol.
“We’re not pulling anything out because it’s not safe for the tow trucks to be out there,” he said.
The storm did damage even in warmer parts of the country.
Seven inches of rain fell in Tennessee, where the storm sparked a mudslide that destroyed an apartment building near Knoxville. Dozens of residents were left homeless, and one was hospitalized with serious injuries.
In Florida, the famed Daytona 500 car race was disrupted by heavy rain.
Because it’s Presidents Day, city officials predicted that plowing costs would be much higher than normal – as thousands of sanitation workers earn not only overtime, but also holiday pay.
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THE WHITE STUFF
Philadelphia: 16 inches
Baltimore: 21 inches
Washington, D.C.: 16 inches
Wilmington: 14 inches
Smyrna: 16 inches
Newark: 4 inches
N.Y.C.: 2.5 inches
Snowfall accumulation as of 9 p.m. yesterday
Source: National Weather Service