East Digs Out; New Snow Buries Boston

Near-blizzard conditions plagued the Boston area Thursday, dumping up to a foot of snow and closing Logan Airport, but sun and seasonable temperatures elsewhere melted the snow from back-to-back storms blamed for 20 deaths.

Among the victims was a 5-month-old boy who died Thursday after spending the night with his homeless parents in a car in New Britain, Conn.

Near Washington, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge across the Potomac on Interstate 95 was closed for more than 12 hours, causing heavy traffic tie-ups, until early Thursday afternoon because snowplows were unable to maneuver around hundreds of abandoned vehicles. Maryland state police reported towing 150 vehicles.

Freezing temperatures gripped the South early Thursday. Eight cities or towns from Texas to Virginia broke or tied their low temperature records for the day.

In Boston, weather service officials said the storm, driven by winds up to 50 m.p.h., dumped almost a foot of snow in the western suburb of Marlboro.

Heaviest on Record

It was the heaviest early snowstorm in the area since the government began keeping records in 1891.

In Rhode Island, the weather service said the overnight snowfall of nearly 10 inches was the earliest for the month in the state and the most snow ever for November.

“The snow has been slackening off in the Northeast except for a few flurries over the southern coast of New England and extreme southeastern New York,” Hugh Crowther of the National Weather Service said about noon, around the time the sun broke through in Boston.

“The temperatures should be moderating quite a bit and by Friday should generally be in the 50s and perhaps close to 60,” he said.

In downtown Boston, where temperatures had been in the 70s the week before, workers on their lunch hours jammed department stores in search of winter boots, gloves and hats.

Similar scenes were reported along the trail of the storms from Virginia north through Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.

Scores of private and public schools across the Northeast, in Virginia and the District of Colombia remained closed, and some students stranded overnight finally got a chance to go home.

In Prince George’s County, Md., one of the hardest hit areas, 18 students from two Oxon Hill elementary schools were bused home about 9:30 a.m. after being snowed in their schools overnight.

Airport Closed

Officials closed Logan International Airport in Boston about 3 a.m. so crews could clear the runways, but workers were hampered by strong winds. One runway opened at 10:30 a.m., said Massachusetts Port Authority spokeswoman Dee Clarke.

Stranded passengers huddled in the airport, many sitting on the floor reading or playing cards.

The storm also knocked out power on Cape Cod, where the Bourne Bridge--one of two bridges connecting Cape Cod with the mainland--was closed because of ice.

The fatalities attributed by officials to the storm included seven deaths in Virginia, where five people were killed in traffic accidents. A homeless man was found dead in Arlington, apparently of exposure, and an elderly man died from an apparent heart attack while caught in a traffic tie-up.

Traffic accidents blamed on the storm also killed three people in Pennsylvania, two in New York state and one in New Jersey. Three fatalities in Maryland and one in Delaware were attributed to the storm.

Police in Georgia reported the deaths of two transient men, whose bodies were found Wednesday, as caused by a combination of cold and alcohol.

In Connecticut, police charged a couple with risk of injury to a minor in the death of their infant son. The family spent the night in their car in front of an apartment building where they had previously lived with relatives.