February 6, 2010

NBC News and news services

WASHINGTON - Life in the nation's capital ground to a halt Friday as steady snow fell, the beginning of a storm that forecasters said could be the biggest for the city in modern history.

Photo: Snow accumulates during a snowstorm in Washington on Februray 5, 2010. Washington is expecting 24-30 inches (60-75cm) of snowfall overnight. (AFP / Getty)

Meteorologists said they didn't expect the blizzard battering the Mid-Atlantic region to stop any time soon.

A record of 2½ feet or more is predicted for Washington alone. As of early Saturday, parts of Maryland had seen up to 20 inches of snow, and forecasters expect snowfall rates to only increase - up to 2 inches per hour until daybreak.

Officials urged people stay home and out of the way of crews trying to keep up with the storm.

Blizzard warnings were issued for D.C., parts of New Jersey and Delaware and some areas west of the Chesapeake Bay. Tens of thousands in the region were without power, and snow piled up on roadways and caused trees to topple.

A hospital fire in D.C. sent about three dozen patients scurrying from their rooms to safety in a basement. The blaze started when a snow plow truck caught fire near the building, but no injuries were reported.

'Extremely dangerous'

The region's second snowstorm in less than two months could be "extremely dangerous," the National Weather Service said. Meteorologist Kevin Whitt in Sterling, Va., said 4 inches had fallen in the Baltimore area and forecasters expected snowfall rates to increase overnight.

"Things are fairly manageable, but trees are starting to come down," said D.C. fire department spokesman Pete Piringer.

www.standeyo.com/NEWS/10_Earth_Changes/100206.2in.snow.per.hr.html

The heavy, wet snow and strong winds threatened to clog roads and paralyze the region's transportation and retail.

Airlines canceled flights, schools closed and the federal government sent workers home, where they could be stuck for several days in a region ill-equipped to deal with so much snow. Some area hospitals asked people with four-wheel-drive vehicles to volunteer to pick up doctors and nurses to take them to work.

The National Zoo closed early and the Smithsonian museums were to close Saturday. U.S. Park Police spokesman Sgt. David Schlosser said the Lincoln Memorial and other monuments in Washington would remain open as long as conditions allowed.

Photo: Lauren and Whit Ellerman of Roanoke, Va., walk their labrador retrievers Gracie and Atticus in the snow in South Roanoke, Va., on Friday, Feb. 5, 2010. (AP /The Roanoke Times, Stephanie Klein - Davis)

Gilles Conti scrambled in vain to find a way to get to Los Angeles from Dulles International Airport in suburban Washington, where all flights through Saturday afternoon were canceled.

"I'm just going to wait, I mean, what can I do?" he said. "I'm going to go back to the hotel I was in and I guess I'm going to stay there."

Officials told NBC News that Philadelphia airport was "not expected to have many flights before 2 p.m." on Saturday.

Stores jammed

Amtrak stopped most trains heading south from Washington.

Before the heavy snow started falling, shoppers jammed aisles and emptied stores of milk, bread and shovels.

There were 20 to 30 people waiting when a Trader Joe's in Falls Church, Va., opened at 8 a.m.

Errol Bailey, a 55-year-old tailor who works in northern Virginia, said he had stocked up on food at his home in Largo, Md.

"I've got some cashews, some orange juice, some bread, cheese and I'm about to pick up a bottle of wine here now," Bailey said.

Many shoppers found they were too late.

At a Safeway in Hanover, Md., there wasn't a single egg in the store, and only a few bottles of milk remained.

Photo: Shoppers wait in the check out line at a packed Giant grocery store in Washington, hours before a massive snow storm was expected to hit the area. The check out line stretches to the back of the aisle at a Giant grocery store in Washington. (AP)

"I've come from two other places that are out of milk and sour cream," said Cheryl Conner, 50, of Hanover. "This one's out of sour cream, too. It's crazy."

Conner said the snow was altering her weekend plans. "I told my husband, we're not having a Super Bowl party," she said. "No one can get up our driveway."

As heavy snow fell at an Indianapolis airport, Colts fans arrived early hoping they could still catch flights to Miami, where the Super Bowl was to be held. Most direct flights were on time, but travelers passing through Philadelphia and Washington had to make other arrangements.

Metro, the Washington-area rail system, said ridership Friday morning was down, a sign people were heeding official warnings to stay home.

In western Virginia, a tractor-trailer struck and killed a father and son who had stopped to help another driver who had wrecked in snow on Interstate 81, Virginia State Police said. William Edward Smith Jr., 25, of Mooresburg, Tenn., and 54-year-old William Edward Smith Sr. of Sylva, N.C., died at the scene, authorities said.

Across the region, transportation officials were deploying thousands of trucks and had hundreds of thousands of tons of salt at the ready. Several states exhausted or expected to exhaust their snow removal budgets.

"This is not a good mix," said Joan Morris, a spokeswoman for the Virginia Department of Transportation. "Heavy, wet snow with gusting winds is going to make it a very tough storm for us. I expect visibility will be very poor in spots, and we'll have to deal with drifting snow."

Drifting snow

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who has been in office less than a month, declared his second snow emergency, authorizing state agencies to assist local governments. Then he appeared on The Weather Channel to talk about it.

Photo: Shoppers walk past empty meat cases at a Giant grocery store in Washington, on Friday, Feb. 5, 2010, hours before a massive snow storm was expected to hit the area. (AP /Jacquelyn Martin)

Blizzard warnings were also in effect for much of Delaware and southern New Jersey from Friday afternoon to Saturday night, with strong winds and blowing, drifting snow.

Philadelphia could get about a foot of snow and up to 20 inches was expected in the Pittsburgh area.

The storm comes less than two months after a Dec. 19 storm dumped more than 16 inches of snow on Washington. Snowfalls of this magnitude - let alone two in one season - are rare in the area. According to the National Weather Service, Washington has gotten more than a foot of snow only 13 times since 1870.

The heaviest on record was 28 inches in January 1922. The biggest snowfall for the Washington-Baltimore area is believed to have occurred in 1772, before official records were kept, when as much as 3 feet fell in the Washington-Baltimore area, an epic event George Washington and Thomas Jefferson mentioned in their diaries.

In Washington, some made the best of it Friday evening by grabbing drinks with friends at local bars.

Jukka Strand, 28, is from Finland and said he was the only one to work at his World Bank office Friday.

"I'm very disappointed about how Americans deal with snowfall," Strand said. "Even if it was (30 inches), it shouldn't cause such chaos."

"It's just snow," said Beth Wolfram, 30, a government contractor. "It's not like it's attacking us."

NBC News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35237043/ns/weather/