Dire Warnings Along East Coast As Snow Piles Up

WASHINGTON: A massive winter storm that threatens to dump 2 feet of snow on the nation's capital began pummeling the East Coast on Friday afternoon, as millions of people from the Carolinas to New York braced for a weekend of severe winds, power losses and coastal flooding. Thousands of flights were canceled; governors and mayors warned people to stay indoors and off the roads.

Governors in at least 10 states declared states of emergency, and travel was disrupted in at least five major airport hubs, with 6,300 flights canceled Friday and Saturday and 4,675 more delayed. In North Carolina, more than 114,000 homes lost power. The Washington region's mass transit system took what an official called an "exceedingly rare" step of shutting down for the weekend.

Cities from Nashville, Tennessee, to New York started emergency operations to respond to what the National Weather Service deemed a "potentially crippling winter storm." In Virginia, where snow began falling Friday morning in the southern part of the state, Gov. Terry McAuliffe put 700 National Guard members on standby. By Friday evening, hundreds of accidents had been reported. In Baltimore, shelters added hundreds of extra beds to accommodate the homeless.

Officials throughout the Mid-Atlantic region warned that it could be days, or even a week, before residents will be able to dig out. In New York, where blizzard conditions are expected to hit early Saturday and bring 18 to 24 inches of snow, Mayor Bill de Blasio urged residents to use mass transit and to stay home as much as possible. "Unless it is urgent, stay off the roads," he said. "It's as simple as that."
 
With Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York all in line for blizzard conditions - and winds of up to 50 mph - forecasters predicted a storm of historic proportions. Here in Washington, where wet, heavy snowflakes began falling in the early afternoon, officials told residents to get indoors by 3 p.m., and warned of the potential not only for power losses and treacherous roads, but collapsed roofs.

Mayor Muriel Bowser said the storm has "life-and-death implications." At a late afternoon news conference, her director of emergency operations, Chris T. Geldart, urged drivers to get off the roads.

"This is a dangerous storm, and it's coming fast," Geldart said. "This is deteriorating quickly; we need folks to get where they are going to be."

Meteorologists said the dire warnings were appropriate. "Temperatures are going to be into the upper 20s into the low 30s," Rich Otto, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said in an interview. "When you combine that with extremely heavy snow, blowing wind - which will generate white out conditions - if you are trying to venture outside, it could be life or death."

The storm - called Snowmaggedon2016 on Twitter, and named Winter Storm Jonas by the Weather Channel - could approach the 28 inches in January 1922 that ranks as Washington's snowiest storm and is likely to easily surpass the highest recent snowfall, 17.8 inches that fell in February 2010.

But Otto said the region west of Washington, including parts of Virginia, West Virginia, southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Maryland, will form the "bull's-eye" of the blizzard, with as much as 30 inches of snow expected there.

In Charleston, West Virginia, near whiteout conditions appeared Friday afternoon as snow piled high enough to hide the curbs on the sidewalk. City snowplow drivers reported abandoned cars blocking the roads.

On the Jersey Shore and southern Long Island, there was concern about possible wind-driven flooding. Given the region's history with Hurricane Sandy, Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York said he was more worried about flooding than snow.

"Flooding can do tremendous, tremendous damage, as we've learned the hard way," Cuomo said.

By Friday night, nine deaths - five in North Carolina, one in Virginia, one in Kentucky and two in Tennessee - had been attributed to bad road conditions and ice. Governors in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky had declared states of emergency.

Schools throughout the region, including some universities, were closed Friday, as were many government offices. Many businesses instructed people to telecommute, and countless activities were postponed. President Barack Obama put off a White House ceremony where he was to award medals to scientists and technology innovators. In Baltimore, the country music star Garth Brooks postponed two sold-out shows.
 
At the Capitol, lawmakers wrapped up their business early and rushed to get out of town. And Speaker Paul D. Ryan offered a social-media worthy alternative to streaming television: He set up a livestream from the balcony of his office, just off the Capitol rotunda, so Americans can watch the blizzard hit the National Mall. There were long lines to get gas in the Washington area - some stations ran out of regular gas on Friday, and grocery and hardware store shelves were picked clean.

In suburban Bethesda, traffic was clogged with cars trying to squeeze into the parking lot of Strosnider's, a local hardware store. People in knit caps and puffer coats crowded the aisles in search of batteries, flashlights, salt and snow shovels. One woman, Susan Schwartz, gave up and left, going to another store in nearby Kensington, which was by then devoid of storm supplies.

"There were no shovels and no salt to be found," she said.

In Baltimore, where an estimated 3,000 people are homeless, more somber preparations were underway. Deputy Mayor Dawn Kirstaetter said the city had deployed teams of mental health specialists to bring homeless people in from the storm. City employees planned to work overnight to staff shelters with expanded bed space; officials at Catholic Charities of Baltimore said they were expecting hundreds to show up for meals Saturday.

"Five years ago, 400 people showed up for lunch," said Bill McCarthy, the group's executive director, referring to the region's last major blizzard, in February 2010. "I'm expecting the same thing - and they will be served."

In Virginia, McAuliffe told CNN that if conditions deteriorate, he would consider closing a major rural thoroughfare, Interstate 81. "The second the state police call me and inform me that Interstate 81 is not safe for traffic, I will pull the trigger immediately," he said. "We will shut it down immediately. This is a major snow event for us."

Perhaps the most extraordinary step here in Washington was the closing of the Metro system, the bus and rail service that serves Washington and its Maryland and Northern Virginia suburbs. Trains were to stop running at 11 p.m. Friday and were not expected to resume until at least Monday morning. Dan Stessel, a spokesman for Metro, said the early decision to shutter the system - announced Thursday - was highly unusual.

Amid the preparations, at least one event did go on as planned Friday in Washington. Even as snow started falling early in the afternoon, what appeared to be more than a thousand anti-abortion activists - albeit fewer than most years - rallied beneath the Washington Monument for their annual march marking the anniversary of the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

The crowd heard from Carly Fiorina, a Republican presidential candidate, and Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, who thanked them for braving the cold and "putting on your coats, your mittens and your gloves to fight for life."