Blizzard Dumps Crippling Snow on East, South

Winter swooped down on the Eastern United States Thursday, sealing the nation’s capital with a blanket of snow, closing airports and schools in the South and making life even more miserable for New York commuters already beset by a railroad strike.

From Dixie to New England, motorists were urged to stay home as the worst snowstorm since 1983 churned out of the South, leaving at least four dead, scores of automobile accidents and countless stranded motorists and commuters.

“It’s just like a war zone out there,” said Art Strong of the National Weather Service in Charleston, W.Va. “The first good storm of the season causes all kinds of problems.”

“We’ve been telling people all day long that, unless it is necessary, do not go out on the roadway,” Virginia State Police Sgt. R. N. Farr said.

‘It’s a Mess’

On a 45-mile stretch of parkway between Washington and Baltimore, “at least 30 cars were off the road,” said Linda Harris of Washington, who commutes to work at a television station in Baltimore. “It’s a mess out there.”

The Maryland National Guard was transporting doctors and nurses needed for emergency services.

Thousands of commuters were stranded at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan when buses to New Jersey stopped running because the New Jersey Turnpike and a major highway were clogged with traffic, Port Authority spokesman Frederick Boyd said.

More than 300,000 federal workers in Washington were sent home by midday, as weather forecasters here predicted almost a foot of snow. Similar forecasts were issued up and down the coast.

“A lot of people stayed home” from work, said Gail Blachly, deputy director of public affairs at the Office of Personnel Management, and those who did not were allowed to leave in shifts beginning at 10:30 a.m. She said the government shutdown went well, “considering it’s snow in Washington,” a city noted for citizens who have trouble driving in snow.

Swirling snow obscured gray monuments and buildings as streets became ski-ways.

Congressmen Stranded

In Congress, a House Armed Services chairman had to be elected, so four-wheel drive vehicles were dispatched to pick up seven or eight stranded members, said Rep. Thomas S. Foley (D-Wash.), the majority leader, adding that many congressmen “made Herculean efforts to get here.”

First formed in the Gulf of Mexico, the storm hit the Deep South Wednesday night, re-formed near Cape Hatteras, N.C., and intensified as it moved up the Atlantic Coast Thursday.

By late Thursday afternoon, it had raked Atlanta and moved on. Looking out her 23rd floor office window there, Juliet Blackburn-Beamon, a public transit official, said that four inches of snow had fallen, adding: “It’s slightly gray but basically clear. Now everybody’s afraid of the freeze.”

Schools shut down in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, Virginia, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

As the storm knifed into New England, where more than a foot of snow was expected on top of an earlier snowfall, Leslie Harris, a resident of Beverly, Mass., peered out her window and said: “Oh, my God, it’s blizzarding out there. It feels blue outside, and I might build a fire to keep it from getting blue in here.”

Commuters Leave Early

In New York, police reported that parkways had turned into parking lots as commuters stranded by a Long Island Rail Road strike left Manhattan offices by lunchtime and struggled to get home.

In midtown, snow fell so densely at times that it obliterated nearby skyscrapers. Fog mixed with the snow, as did the sound of thunder and honking car horns amid winds of 30 m.p.h.

By early evening, the National Weather Service designated the storm a blizzard in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

New York’s LaGuardia and Kennedy International airports were closed, as were Philadelphia International Airport, National Airport in Washington and Logan International Airport in Boston. Newark International Airport closed at 4:15 p.m.; the last flight was a charter plane carrying the wives of New York Giant players on their way to California for the Super Bowl, said Port Authority spokeswoman Lynne Tierney.

Lee May reported from Washington and John J. Goldman reported from New York.