Snowstorm hits NYC, Boston; 1 to 3 feet feared

JAY LINDSAY

Asso­ci­ated Press

BOSTON — A storm that fore­cast­ers warned could be a bliz­zard for the his­tory books began clob­ber­ing the New York-to-Boston cor­ri­dor on Fri­day, ground­ing flights, clos­ing work­places and send­ing peo­ple rush­ing to get home ahead of a pos­si­ble 1 to 3 feet of snow.

From New Jer­sey to Maine, shop­pers crowded into super­mar­kets and hard­ware stores to buy food, snow shov­els, flash­lights and gen­er­a­tors, some­thing that became a pre­cious com­mod­ity after Super­storm Sandy in Octo­ber. Oth­ers gassed up their cars, another les­son learned all too well after Sandy. Across much of New Eng­land, schools closed well ahead of the first snowflakes.

“This is a storm of major pro­por­tions,” Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said. “Stay off the roads. Stay home.”

By Fri­day evening, Boston had just 2.5 inches of snow and New York City had just 2, but parts of south­east­ern Mass­a­chu­setts had more than 6 inches and cen­tral Rhode Island had more than 8. And, as more than 100,000 cus­tomers in the region lost power, the National Weather Ser­vice warned the worst was still to come.

The wind-whipped snow­storm mer­ci­fully arrived at the start of a week­end, which meant fewer cars on the road and extra time for san­i­ta­tion crews to clear the mess before com­muters in the New York-to-Boston region of roughly 25 mil­lion peo­ple have to go back to work. But it could also mean a week­end cooped up indoors.

Rainy Neves, a mother of two in Cam­bridge, just west of Boston, did some last-minute shop­ping at a gro­cery store, fill­ing her cart to the brim.

“Hon­estly, a lot of junk — a lot of quick things you can make just in case lights go out, a lot of snacks to keep the kids busy while they’d be inside dur­ing the storm, things to sip with my friends, things for movies,” she said. “Just a whole bunch of things to keep us entertained.”

In heav­ily Catholic Boston, the arch­dio­cese urged parish­ioners to be pru­dent about attend­ing Sun­day Mass and reminded them that, under church law, the oblig­a­tion “does not apply when there is grave dif­fi­culty in ful­fill­ing this obligation.”

Halfway through what had been a mild win­ter across the North­east, bliz­zard warn­ings were posted from parts of New Jer­sey to Maine. The National Weather Ser­vice said Boston could get close to 3 feet of snow by Sat­ur­day evening, while most of Rhode Island could receive more than 2 feet, most of it falling overnight Fri­day into Sat­ur­day. Con­necti­cut was brac­ing for 2 feet, and New York City was expect­ing as much as 14 inches.

By Fri­day evening, the New York-to-Boston cor­ri­dor was expe­ri­enc­ing blizzard-like con­di­tions, with blow­ing, swirling snow and freez­ing rain. Early snow­fall was blamed for a 19-car pileup in Cum­ber­land, Maine, that caused minor injuries. Through­out the North­east, more than 118,000 homes and busi­ness lost power, mainly in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Fore­cast­ers said wind gusts up to 75 mph could cause more wide­spread power out­ages and whip the snow into fear­some drifts. Flood­ing was expected along coastal areas still recov­er­ing from Super­storm Sandy, which hit New York and New Jer­sey the hard­est and is con­sid­ered Jersey’s worst nat­ural disaster.

Mete­o­rol­o­gist Jeff Mas­ters, of Weather Under­ground, said the win­ter storm was a col­li­sion of two storms and may end up among the Boston area’s Top 5 most intense ever.

“When you add two respectable storms together, you’re going to get a knock­out punch with this one,” he said.

It could break Boston’s all-time snow­storm record of 27.6 inches, set in 2003, fore­cast­ers said. The storm also comes almost 35 years to the day after the Bliz­zard of ‘78, a fero­cious storm that dropped 27 inches of snow, packed hurricane-force winds and claimed dozens of lives.

Mas­ters said the region could get a break from warmer air trail­ing behind that is expected to push tem­per­a­ture up to the 40s by Monday.

“It’s going to be not that dif­fi­cult to dig out, com­pared to maybe some other nor’easters in the past, where it stayed cold after the storm went through,” he said.

Dri­vers were urged to stay off the streets lest their cars get stuck, pre­vent­ing snow­plows and emer­gency vehi­cles from get­ting through. New York City ran extra com­muter trains to help peo­ple get home before the brunt of the storm hit.

Amtrak stopped run­ning trains in cities around the North­east on Fri­day after­noon. Air­lines can­celed more than 4,300 flights through Sat­ur­day, and New York City’s three major air­ports and Boston’s Logan Air­port shut down.

Inter­state 95 was closed to all but essen­tial traf­fic in Rhode Island, where the gov­er­nor said power out­ages remained the biggest threat.

“With tree branches laden with heavy, wet snow, the winds pick­ing up and the tem­per­a­tures plung­ing all at the same time, it’s a bad com­bi­na­tion,” Gov. Lin­coln Chafee said.

In Mass­a­chu­setts, Gov. Deval Patrick enacted a statewide dri­ving ban for the first time since the Bliz­zard of ‘78. Hours before the ban went into effect at 4 p.m., long lines formed at gas sta­tions, some of which were almost out of fuel.

James Stone said he was sav­ing the remain­ing reg­u­lar gas at his sta­tion in Abing­ton, south of Boston, for snow­plow drivers.

“It hasn’t snowed like this in two years,” Stone said. “Most peo­ple are caught way off-guard.”

In New York, Fash­ion Week, a series of designer show­ings with some activ­i­ties held under tents, went on mostly as sched­uled, though orga­niz­ers put on addi­tional crews to deal with the snow and ice, turned up the heat and for­ti­fied the tents. The snow did require some wardrobe changes: Designer Michael Kors was forced to arrive at the Project Run­way show in Uggs.

For Joe DeMartino, of Fair­field, Conn., being over­pre­pared was impos­si­ble: His wife was expect­ing their first baby Sun­day. He stocked up on gas and food, got fire­wood ready and was installing a baby seat in the car. The cou­ple also packed for the hospital.

“They say that things should clear up by Sun­day. We’re hop­ing that they’re right,” he said.

Said his wife, Michelle: “It adds an ele­ment of excitement.”

The snow was too much of a good thing in some places. In New Hamp­shire, the Uni­ver­sity of Connecticut’s Ski­ing Car­ni­val was can­celed because of the snow­storm. In Maine, the National Tobog­gan Cham­pi­onships in Cam­den were post­poned from Sat­ur­day to Sun­day, and the Camp Sun­shine Polar Plunge was put off until March.

At Rosie’s Liquors in Abing­ton, cus­tomers were lined up eight to 10 deep Fri­day, snap­ping up rum, wine and 30-packs of beer.

“We’ve been absolutely slammed. It’s almost been like Christ­mas here,” man­ager Kris­ten Brown said. “A lot of peo­ple are say­ing, ‘I’m going to be stuck with my fam­ily all week­end. I need some­thing to do.’”

Posted by AP News on Feb 8 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.