A killer snowstorm that battered the South and the nation's capital brought greater New York City to a standstill on Saturday, packing gale-force winds, heavy snow and coastal flooding as it churned up the East Coast.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced he was closing all New York City and Long Island roads at 2:30 p.m., and the above-ground sections of the subway and regional trains at 4 p.m. City buses closed down at noon.
The snow was coming down on the Big Apple at a rate of up to 3 inches per hour. Meteorologists updated their forecast overnight for New York to get up to 24 inches of snow, a jump from initially modest predictions.
"If you really do not need to leave your house, do not leave your house," Cuomo said in announcing a state of emergency Saturday morning. "I don't care how big a four-wheel drive vehicle you have, the roads are barely passable."
The weekend winter wallop has already knocked out power to hundreds of thousands, led to more than 8,300 canceled flights and been blamed for at least 11 deaths. Six of the deaths were in North Carolina, while Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky and Washington, D.C., had one each.
By the time the storm is over Sunday, one in seven Americans from Kentucky to Connecticut could be under at least half a foot of snow. Washington, D.C., and New York City could flirt with record snow totals.
The most significant snowfall totals as of 11 a.m. were in parts of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. Since Friday afternoon, Winchester, Virginia, had received 30 inches, as had Roaring Spring, Pennsylvania. Redhouse, Maryland, got 28.5 inches, and Terra Alta, West Virginia, was buried under 28 inches.
The storm paralyzed other major cities too: Public transportation in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington was shut down, and hundreds of drivers in various states were stranded on icy roadways.
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