Worst Blizzard in Decade Slows N.H. Campaigners

The cold snows of winter overwhelmed the hot air of politics Friday as the worst blizzard in a decade dumped up to 2 feet of snow on parts of New England, paralyzing air and ground traffic and adding to a mounting toll of weather-related misery.

The storm, blamed for at least 20 deaths as it swept from the Gulf Coast to the Great Lakes and up to Canada, forced snowbound candidates in Tuesday’s crucial New Hampshire primary to improvise on their schedules.

“It is not a pleasant day to campaign,” said Dan McCarthy, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service Severe Storm Center in Kansas City.

It was not a pleasant day to do much of anything else, either. The Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for all of New England as winds gusting up to 60 m.p.h. slammed into many areas already deluged with piles of wet, heavy snow.

Power lines snapped, schools closed and cars skidded into each other or off the icy roads.

“We’re in the middle of a full-blown nor’easter,” said Michael Hildreth, a dispatcher for the New Hampshire State Police. “The roads are all snow-covered and treacherous. An hour after the plows go by, they’re buried all over again. . . . It took me two hours to get 11 miles to work today.”

Major airports, including Boston’s Logan International, were closed for several hours.

2 to 3 Inches an Hour

Hardest hit by Friday’s storm were New Hampshire and Vermont. At Concord, New Hampshire’s capital, snow was accumulating at the rate of 2 to 3 inches an hour by midday.

McCarthy said two separate storm systems--one sweeping east off the Great Lakes and another moving north up the New Jersey coast--collided over New England early Friday with ferocious meteorological results.

On Wednesday and Thursday, one of the systems dumped more than a foot of snow on much of the Midwest and Ohio Valley. Authorities in those areas reported numerous deaths and injuries from traffic accidents and heart attacks suffered by snow shovelers. Freezing rain and 2- to 3-inch snowfalls also surprised residents in many parts of the South.

Kidnap Victims Flee

Near Bowling Green, Ky., one woman died when her car hit a skidding truck. Police said the accident slowed traffic enough to enable two kidnap victims to flee from the car in which they were trapped. The alleged kidnaper was later apprehended, authorities said.

The storm was good news for ski resorts in northern New England. They picked up 2 feet of fresh snow in a matter of hours. But the story was different in White Plains, N.Y., where gale-force winds ripped 15 stories of metal construction scaffolding from around a building.

In New Hampshire, where Republican and Democratic presidential candidates were stumping for votes, the storm wreaked havoc with campaign schedules.

Sen. Bob Dole was forced to scrub a trip to New Orleans to speak at a GOP conference because the airport in Manchester, N.H., was closed.

Reporters Trapped

But the the day was not a waste for Dole. One of his Republican challengers, former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig Jr., picked Friday morning to drop out of the race and throw his support to Dole at a Manchester news conference that received far more press attention than it would have had the snow not also trapped hundreds of national political reporters in Manchester. More than 300 news people showed up, dwarfing the size of the press turnout at any event for Haig when he was still in the race.

Many candidates struggled to make constructive use of their time. Democrat Sen. Paul Simon of Illinois built a snowman, complete with his trademark bow tie. Missouri Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, another Democrat, struck out for a dog-sled race. And Vice President George Bush, who showed off his helmsmanship skills Thursday with a forklift and a semi-trailer truck, commandeered a snowplow and scraped about 200 yards of a Nashua street.

Republican Pierre S. (Pete) du Pont IV hit on perhaps the most novel scheme to make the best of a bad situation. The former Delaware governor dispatched a “shovel brigade” of college supporters to hustle votes by cleaning walks and driveways.

“We’re shoveling a clean path for Pete,” said Fred Maas, Du Pont’s campaign manager.

Contributing to this story were staff writers Wendy Leopold in Chicago and James Risen, Cathleen Decker and Bob Drogin in New Hampshire.