Authorities banned travel on all streets and highways in New
York City and Long Island and warned that violators could be fined $300. Even
food deliveries were off-limits on the streets of takeout-friendly Manhattan.
The governors of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island also slapped
restrictions on nonessential travel.
"We learned the lesson the hard way," said New
York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, referring to instances in which motorists got stranded
in the snow for 24 hours or more.
Governors in five states -- New York, New Jersey,
Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire -- declared emergencies and travel
bans were being implemented on roads for Monday evening. Government offices
closed. Shoppers stocking up on food jammed supermarkets and elbowed one
another for what was left. Broadway stages went dark.
In Massachusetts, the town of Scituate told coastal
residents to evacuate by 6 p.m. and said a shelter had been set up at the local
high school.
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker issued a ban, effective at
midnight, on non-essential motor vehicle travel., The Boston Globe reported.
The MBTA will close after midnight and will have no service on Tuesday.
Connecticut Gov. Dan Malloy issued a statewide travel ban
beginning at 9 p.m. Monday when the storm is expected to be at its heaviest.
Malloy told reporters Monday the blizzard could potentially be a record-setter
and urged all residents to stay indoors. He said that if residents lose power,
they will likely be without it for "several days."
"It is imperative that you have a plan in place to get
home safely this evening before the heavy snow begins and remain there for the
duration of the storm," Malloy said Monday morning.
In New York, Cuomo told reporters that crews were prepared
with 750 plows and 50 pounds of salt to handle the snowfall, expected to reach
as much as 18-24 inches. New York City subways will be restricted to limited
service after 7 p.m. and Metro North and Long Island Railroad lines will be
shut down after 11 p.m.
Throughout the area, road and utility crews were ready to
plow and salt roads, as well as address possible power outages. John Latka,
spokesman for PSE&G, which provides gas and electric service to much of New
Jersey and parts of New York, called for patience from consumers in the event
of outages.
“While snow by itself doesn’t normally pose a serious
problem, heavy snow and strong winds can increase the possibility of downed
wires and power outages,” Latka said. “These conditions will also make it
difficult for our crews to get around and safely respond to any outages. We ask
for our customers’ patience and cooperation as we work to restore service as
quickly as possible.”
De Blasio held up a list of the city’s top 10 snowstorms and
said this one could land at the top of a list that goes back to 1872 and
includes the 26.9 inches that fell in 2006. "Don't underestimate this
storm. Prepare for the worst," he said as he urged residents to plan to
leave work early Monday.
"This could be a storm the likes of which we have never
seen before," he said at a news conference Sunday.
Elsewhere in the region, Boston is expected to get 18 to 24
inches of snow, with up to 3 feet falling west of the city, and Philadelphia
could see 14 to 18 inches, the weather service said. NWS lead forecaster Bob
Oravec said that wind gusts of 75 mph or more are possible for coastal areas of
Massachusetts, with gusts of up to 50 mph further inland.
"We do anticipate very heavy snowfall totals,"
Oravec, told The Associated Press. "In addition to heavy snow, with
blizzard warnings, there's a big threat of high, damaging winds, and that will
be increasing Monday into Tuesday. A lot of blowing, drifting and such."
One city likely to be spared large amounts of snowfall is
Washington D.C., where forecasters expected only a coating or a bit more, with
steadily increasing amounts as the storm moves north.
"Looks like our luck is about to run out," said
John Paulsen as he gassed up his SUV in New Jersey. "I can't complain too
much since we've had a pretty mild winter, but I don't know if I'm ready for a
foot or so of snow all at once."
Preparations large and small were in effect elsewhere in New
York. A Manhattan Home Depot store sold about twice as many shovels over the
weekend as it normally does while transit officials hoping to keep the subways
running smoothly planned to use modified subway cars loaded with de-icing fluid
to spray the third rail that powers trains.
Wyatt Baars, manager of the Charlestown Ace Hardware in
Boston, sold out of his bags of ice-melting pellets. But he said a New
Hampshire distributor is helping him and delivering more.
"Everybody is preparing for the storm," he said.
"When we have something this big on the horizon, everybody comes in for
the ice melt, snow shovels, snow brooms."
Snow plow driver Al Laplant expected to be out clearing
roads of Simsbury, Connecticut, this week, just as he has for more than two
decades.
"We'll be out there until the storm's over and then at
least three hours after cleaning up," he said as he attended a home show
in Hartford. "We'll be out there through the whole storm."
But even for a plow driver, the snow is no cakewalk.
"It's kind of exhilarating," he said. "But at
the same time, I've been doing it for 27 years, so I'm kind of tired of it
myself."
At New York's Penn Station, Cicero Goncalves was waiting for
a train to Vermont, where he's going snowboarding, because he expected the
flight he had hoped to take would be canceled.
But the 34-year-old flight attendant from Queens who was
dressed in a full-length bear costume counted himself and his travel partner
as lucky. "We'll get there before it snows, and we're coming back when the
storm is over, on Thursday," he said.
The storm could stall before it tracks out to sea, bringing
high wind, heavy precipitation and the potential for coastal flooding, the
National Weather Service said. It would be the second wallop for the Northeast
after what happened Saturday, when a storm crawling up the East Coast left a
slushy, snowy coating from Pennsylvania to New England.
The storm dumped at least 9 inches of snow in parts of
Pennsylvania and 8 inches in parts of New York, northern New Jersey and
northwestern Connecticut, with widespread reports of more than 4 inches in
inland areas across southern New England. Lighter amounts were reported in
Philadelphia, Boston and New York City, where the snowfall stopped Saturday
evening.
About 8 inches of snow fell in far eastern Maine before the
storm moved out late Saturday night.
Numerous accidents were reported on the slick roads, but
there were no major highway backups in the lighter weekend traffic. Police in
Connecticut and Massachusetts were investigating the weather's role in traffic
accidents that killed two people Saturday afternoon.
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