There was a heavy snowstorm during the night and the snowplows all met on our corner so the piles of snow were all about 5 feet high right there.

It was still early morning so the kids were still sleeping, but there were other female relatives in the house. They were sitting around, expecting me to serve them coffee so they could wake up. But I had to shovel off the steps and the sidewalk. Nobody was helping to do this part of the job.

I noted that as soon as the snow fell, it was already starting to melt - the snow was wet and heavy - not the dry fluffy stuff that blows around and drifts.

I did a little shoveling on the steps, then went back into the house where the women were just sitting around chatting.

One woman demanded that I bring her a laundry basket so she could pick up things that were laying on the floor. There were blankets and quilts everywhere.

But I noted that two young girls about 13 were smoking cigarettes an they were laying on their laps. I exasperatingly yelled at them and asked them why they hadn't asked for ash trays. So I went to the cupboard to find ashtrays. I didn't even have any because nobody smoked in the house. So I found 4 saucers - but noted that two of them had melted around the edges, so I gave the half-melted saucers to the two girls who were smoking.

I went back out and finished shoveling the sidewalk, wondering where I was going to pile the snow if we got any more. But at the same time, the snow was melting so fast that the sidewalk was wet where I had shoveled already.  It was just barely cold enough to snow.

I went back into the house and found that the kids were just waking up.

My father was in the house now and I told him how warm it was after the storm and he didn't want to believe me, so I pointed out the window and there was a young girl walking by, wearing white shorts and a short sleeved shirt with a thing pink spring raincoat blowing open around her int he breeze and carrying her umbrella in case it rained during the day.

At least 21 deaths had been blamed on the storm system since it charged out of the Plains during the weekend, piling snow in the Ohio Valley, producing mudslides and floods in the southern Appalachians, and making layers of ice that snapped trees and power lines.

The storm was headed for New England, where Massachusetts expected up to 2 feet of snow and minor coastal flooding.

Airports for Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York largely shut down, stranding thousands of passengers trying to leave and get into the region. Amtrak's north-south service was halted between Washington and Richmond, Va., and regional bus service stopped in many areas.

The holiday meant there were few commuters, but police from Kentucky to Massachusetts pleaded with motorists to just stay home and some counties banned nonessential travel so they could clear the roads.

``This is going to be days worth of cleanup,'' said Maryland Highway Administration spokesman David Buck.

The western tip of Maryland was buried, with 49 inches of snow in Garrett County on top of 30-foot drifts left by earlier storms.

``It's no man's land out there,'' said Garrett County state highway supervisor Paul McIntyre, whose office window in Keysers Ridge, elevation 2,900 feet, was entirely blocked by snow. ``It looks more like Siberia than Maryland.''

Elsewhere, 27 inches fell in West Virginia's Berkeley County, the National Weather Service said. The Seven Springs ski resort area on western Pennsylvania had 40 inches. In northern Virginia, Winchester had 30 inches and Linden, on the Blue Ridge, measured 35. To the west, some parts of Ohio reported ice 8 inches thick with other areas under 16 inches of snow.

Ice also ravaged parts of Kentucky.

``All the trees are down,'' Mark Caudill, 21, said at a shelter opened up in Lexington, Ky. ``It looks like an avalanche just came through here and destroyed everything.''

It was one of the worst snowstorms in a century in Washington, where 16 inches fell. For the region as a whole, it was the worst snowstorm since the blizzard of 1996, when at least 80 deaths were blamed on the weather.

Among the many travelers stranded by the storm, few were as far from home as Lynn Anderson of Belfast, Ireland.

``It's turned into a complete nightmare,'' said Anderson, who arrived in Philadelphia on Sunday hoping to go to Williamsburg, Va., but had to stay overnight in a downtown Philadelphia hotel.

Staff members at Baltimore-Washington International Airport distributed blankets and pillows to the some 150 travelers who spent the night there. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Newark, Kennedy and LaGuardia airports, supplied cots and blankets.

Thousands of travelers trying to get home from vacations were stuck at Florida airports.

``We are not going anywhere,'' Elizabeth Huffman said at Miami International after finding her flight home to Washington was canceled. Her husband found an alternative: ``We are thinking about going to the beach for the day.''

The heavy snow was blamed for several roof collapses in New Jersey, including one that killed a man at a job-training school in Edison. In Maryland, a train roundhouse roof fell in at the B & O Railroad Museum in Baltimore.

Ohio Gov. Bob Taft declared three southern counties disaster areas Monday because of the snow and ice. Disaster and emergency declarations also had been issued by governors in New York, Kentucky, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.

States had thousands of crews plowing and spreading salt. Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich said the storm had cost between $20 million and $30 million - and the state was already $14 million over budget for road cleanup this season.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg estimated the storm already had cost his city around $20 million.

It could take early three days to clear some side streets in Washington, said District of Columbia Mayor Anthony Williams.

``Once you've plowed this stuff, where do you dump these mountains of stuff?'' Williams asked.

Usually bustling downtown Bethesda, Md., was nearly deserted, with sidewalks buried by snow. Jon Gann, 36, got out his snowshoes for a trek to a coffee shop. ``This is great. I can walk on top of the drifts and completely avoid the streets,'' Gann said.

More than 19 inches had fallen by afternoon in New York City's Central Park, and the dense, fine flakes on unshoveled sidewalks made walking feel like a workout on a Stairmaster. Drifts stood chest high on some side streets and the Rockefeller Center skating rink was closed by snow for the first time since 1996.

An estimated 100,000 customers lost power in West Virginia, with 20,000 in the Carolinas, 62,000 in Ohio, 96,000 in Kentucky and 6,000 in Virginia.

``It's by far the worst ice storm that we've had in decades. It's a nightmare down here,'' said Kimberly Carver, director of Ohio's Scioto County Emergency Management Agency.

Weather-related deaths included two in Illinois, one in Nebraska, six in West Virginia, six in Missouri, one in Ohio, one in New Jersey and four in Iowa.

In Tennessee, two children were missing after the car in which they were riding was swept off a bridge by high water late Sunday. The car had not been found Monday. Their aunt, who was driving, was rescued.

02/17/03 17:26 EST

Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.

Weather blamed for 20 deaths from Nebraska to New Jersey

Monday, February 17, 2003

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A deadly snowstorm pounded the mid-Atlantic and Eastern states Monday, piling up near-record snowfalls, shutting down airports, stranding holiday travelers and paralyzing transportation in much of the area.

The storm has been blamed for 20 deaths since it swept through the Midwest on Friday and moved east.

U.S. government offices, closed Monday for the Presidents Day holiday, will be shut down in the nation's capital again Tuesday because of the foot and a half of snow that blanketed the Washington area. Emergency services will be operating.

In Garrett County, Maryland, as many as 40 inches of snow covered the ground, the National Weather Service said.

In Berkeley Springs, in the northeastern West Virginia, 37 inches had fallen by mid-afternoon, the weather service said.

By day's end, more than a foot of snow was expected over much of New Jersey, southeastern Pennsylvania, northern West Virginia, Maryland, northern Delaware, southwestern Connecticut and northern Virginia.

John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City was buried under 25 inches of snow between midnight Sunday and noon Monday, said Michelle Margraf, a meteorologist with the weather service in Sterling, Virginia.

"That's an incredible amount; that's two inches per hour," the native Minnesotan said.

"People say, 'Oh, you're used to things like this.' But [in Minnesota,] we don't usually get that much snow in one day. It usually falls over the course of a winter."

The storm has affected even the meteorologists, said Margraf, 29, who slept in a weather service office Sunday night. The Sterling Fire Department ferried a number of other weather service workers to their jobs, she said.

Emergency conditions

Although the storm had largely abated in the Washington area by late Monday afternoon, New Yorkers were facing the prospect of more snow into Tuesday morning.

In New Jersey, 2,500 workers were using 2,000 pieces of equipment to clear highways, Gov. James McGreevey said.

In Baltimore, Maryland, the weather service recorded 26.6 inches of snow. Although the city's record snowfall was 26.5 inches, recorded January 27 to 29, 1922, it was not clear whether this latest tally would be deemed a record because it fell over three days.

In nearby Anne Arundel County, officials hired 25 drivers with front-end loaders at more than $100 per hour to join forces with the county's 18 front-end loaders, said Jody Couser, director of communications for the county. They were expected to arrive on flatbed trucks by 10 p.m. Monday.

Since Friday, the storm has been blamed for 20 deaths: two in Illinois, one in Nebraska, five in West Virginia, six in Missouri, one in Ohio, one in New Jersey and four in Iowa. Three of the deaths occurred Monday.

In Baltimore, the weight of snow caved in the roof of the historic Baltimore and Ohio Railroad roundhouse, built in 1884.

Another roof collapse, at a trade school in Edison, New Jersey, killed one man and injured four other people.

Winds in Boston, Massachusetts, reached 60 mph, and hit 40 mph in nearby Providence, Rhode Island.

New York City endured blizzard conditions, with 35-mph winds and heavy, blowing snow that reduced visibility to near zero. Forecasters said the city could receive up to 24 inches of snow, and the governor called out the National Guard. (Full story)

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that the slow-moving system could bring winter precipitation to some areas for two or three more days.

"I am housebound. There is no point to shoveling the sidewalk ... the drifts are impossibly high and gusty," said Richard Freeman, an attorney who lives in west Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. "So, I'm home working on the computer and watching 'The Asphalt Jungle,'" he added.

Travelers going nowhere

Heavy accumulations of snow shut airports, rail lines and bus stations, and flood watches were issued from northern Arkansas and Alabama through Tennessee and eastern Kentucky, according to the NOAA.

Thousands of airline passengers were stranded in Florida because their destination airports were shut down or backed up.

Greyhound bus terminals affected by the storm were closed indefinitely, spokeswoman Kim Plaskett said. The terminals were selling food at wholesale prices to passengers, coordinating with the Red Cross to provide cots and, in some cases, allowing people to sleep on the buses.

At least 2,000 flight cancellations were blamed on the weather, leaving thousands of passengers curled up in airport chairs.

LaGuardia, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Baltimore-Washington International Airport and Philadelphia International Airport were closed. Washington Dulles International Airport was using only two runways.

National was expected to reopen at 7 a.m. Tuesday. Baltimore-Washington International was to reopen at 6 p.m. Monday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Service was not expected to return to normal until noon Tuesday at LaGuardia, where officials set up cots for stranded travelers; Philadelphia International Airport was to be back in business at 6 p.m. Monday.

Washington was slammed by 16.2 inches of snow, the sixth-largest storm in the capital's history, and the city declared a snow emergency before snowfall had stopped late Monday afternoon.

Residents of Silver Spring, Maryland, a Washington suburb, trudged through snow 25 inches deep.

Freezing rain caused hazardous traveling conditions in western and central Virginia. Officials declared states of emergency in West Virginia, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

-- CNN producer Beth Lewandowski contributed to this report

(Feb. 18, 2003) -- The Northeast began digging out of snowdrifts several feet high Tuesday following a crippling President's Day blizzard that will go down in some areas as one of the worst storms in decades.

With snowfall tapering off early Tuesday, snowplows scrambled to clear roads in anticipation of a difficult commute for millions of people in the eastern United States.

``It's no man's land out there,'' said Paul McIntyre, state highway supervisor for Maryland's Garrett County, which received 49 inches of snow. ``It looks more like Siberia than Maryland.''

The storm left a devastating toll across the East. At least 28 deaths had been blamed on the storm system since it charged out of the Plains during the weekend, and more than 250,000 homes and businesses were without power.

Snowdrifts were piled high from the Ohio Valley to New England, mudslides and floods wreaked havoc in the southern Appalachians, and layers of ice snapped trees and power lines.

``It's by far the worst ice storm that we've had in decades. It's a nightmare down here,'' said Kimberly Carver, director of the Scioto County Emergency Management Agency in Ohio. ``It's just crippled us.''

For the region as a whole, it was the worst snowstorm since the blizzard of 1996, when at least 80 deaths were blamed on the weather.

By early Tuesday, Washington Dulles International Airport received 24.2 inches, New York City recorded 19.8 inches of snow and Boston's Logan International Airport had 27.5 inches - the largest accumulation since snow records started being kept in 1892 with a few more inches on the way.

Elsewhere, 37 inches fell in West Virginia's Berkeley County, the National Weather Service said. The Seven Springs ski resort area in western Pennsylvania had 40 inches.

Berkeley Springs, W.Va., asked the state to send in the National Guard to help residents dig themselves out. Mayor Susan Webster said Berkeley Springs needs ``heavy equipment ... and manpower.''

``Our concern is not only moving the snow as quickly as possible for the welfare of our citizens, but the real fear of flooding that a melt of this magnitude will bring,'' Webster said.

Airports serving Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York were largely shut down on Monday, stranding thousands of passengers trying to leave and get into the region.

Some flights resumed Tuesday morning. At Philadelphia International Airport, departing flights started going out around 6 a.m. But even so, airport spokesman Mark Pesce said 35 percent of Tuesday flights are canceled. He expected operations to be normal Wednesday.

Among the many travelers stranded by the storm, few were as far from home as Lynn Anderson of Belfast, Northern Ireland.

``It's turned into a complete nightmare,'' said Anderson, who arrived in Philadelphia on Sunday hoping to go to Williamsburg, Va., but had to stay overnight in a downtown Philadelphia hotel.

Road crews were doing all they could to create smooth Tuesday commutes following the long holiday weekend.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg urged commuters to ``chill out'' and not get frustrated. ``It's going to be a rough commute, but everybody will get there.''

Bloomberg estimated the storm had cost his city around $20 million - about $1 million per inch of snow. Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich said the storm had cost between $20 million and $30 million - and the state was already $14 million over budget for road cleanup this season.

Plows built piles of snow two stories high along some streets, including Fifth Avenue near the Saks department store in midtown Manhattan, where tourists took pictures of each other standing on the gigantic mounds of snow.

An estimated 100,000 customers lost power in West Virginia, with 20,000 in the Carolinas, 62,000 in Ohio, 96,000 in Kentucky and 6,000 in Virginia.

Weather-related deaths included two in Illinois, one in Nebraska, five in Pennsylvania, six in West Virginia, six in Missouri, one in Ohio, two in Virginia, one in New Jersey and four in Iowa.

Among those killed was an 83-year-old Pennsylvania man who sought shelter inside his parked car when his home heating system failed died inside the car. Officials said he died either of hypothermia or carbon monoxide poisoning.

02/18/03 09:13 EST

Copyright 2003 The Associated Press.