Easterners in 4 States Urged to Flee Storm

Authorities in four states urged residents to move inland Friday as a storm swept up the East Coast with heavy snow, strong winds and high tides.

“I just tied up my boats and put the cat in the attic. There’s not much more you can do,” said Dick LaCross, who lives near the beach in Scituate, Mass., where many seaside residents voluntarily evacuated.

High tides broke through a sea wall at Marshfield, Mass., sending water up to nine feet deep into streets and homes. Rescuers in boats helped evacuate some of the residents, who scrambled onto the roofs of houses, cars and businesses to await help.

In New Hampshire and Maine, the National Weather Service urged coastal residents to “complete all safety precautions and evacuate to higher ground inland as soon as possible.”

Authorities said they had no immediate estimates of how many people were evacuated in those states, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

The weather service called the storm “the most vicious” since a February, 1978, blizzard paralyzed Boston with 27 inches of snow, caused 29 deaths, destroyed 339 houses and inflicted $300 million in property damage.

The storm was blamed for four traffic deaths Thursday in North Carolina and two in Virginia, which also was hit by coastal flooding, rain and up to five inches of snow in some western areas.

Friday’s high tide was two to three feet above normal because of a syzygy, a rare alignment of the sun, moon and Earth that has occurred only three times since 1912, the weather service said.

In southern Maine, where as much as nine inches of snow fell Friday, officials closed the Maine Turnpike to commercial traffic, and Augusta was whipped by winds gusting to almost 50 m.p.h.

Hampered by Sightseers

Minor flooding was reported on dockside streets of Portland, but officials said sightseers’ cars were becoming the biggest problem for snowplows and ambulances.

“We’ve probably got 2,000 people at Old Orchard Beach,” said Lyn Dennett of York County’s Civil Defense agency. “People heard about the damage there and they got in their cars to go see it.”

In New York City, high tides delayed commuters on a Staten Island ferry for about an hour until the boat was ballasted down so a ramp ordinarily lowered to the deck of the ferry could reach it.

Home Carried Into Bay

Crashing waves swept across a narrow peninsula in Westhampton Beach, N.Y., and carried a summer home into Moriches Bay.

“Two more homes are ready to go,” Fire Marshal Kenneth Jones said. The homes were unoccupied and no evacuations were necessary.

Massachusetts officials declared states of emergency in four communities, urging hundreds of residents in low-lying areas to evacuate.

“You really can’t force people to make an evacuation but you would hope that their own common sense would convince people to go to higher ground,” said Sgt. James Sartori, a state police spokesman.

Shelters Opened

Civil Defense officials opened emergency shelters in several communities and activated emergency offices in other towns.

National Guardsmen in amphibious vehicles rescued some residents in Hull, Mass., when water trapped them inside their waterfront homes.

“The water has crushed through all our roads,” said Earl Nugent, Civil Defense director in Hull, 20 miles south of Boston. “The erosion is going to be fantastic when this is through.”

The weather service said towns surrounding Worcester, Mass., reported from nine to 11 inches of snow, while about an inch accumulated at Boston’s Logan International Airport, which remained open with some flights delayed.

‘East Coast Bomb’

“This is a classic nor’easter, a real East Coast bomb,” said Mel Goldstein, director of the Weather Center at Western Connecticut State University.

Total snowfalls of 12 to 20 inches were expected in the mountains of New York, Vermont and Massachusetts.

Further inland, about 12 inches of snow was reported around State College and Philipsburg in central Pennsylvania, and five inches fell on the Pittsburgh area. Up to six inches of snow was reported Friday in northern and eastern Ohio, causing power failures in several areas.

Surfers Busy

Gale warnings were raised for coastal Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, where surfers attracted by 10-foot waves spent Friday pursuing the perfect wave at Virginia Beach.

The storm hit hard along the Carolina coast, washing away decks and sidewalks, causing beach erosion and dumping up to 10 inches of snow inland.