Easterners Gnashing Through the Snow

The two-day blizzard that crippled the East with record snowfalls headed out over the Atlantic on Tuesday, and from the Carolinas to Maine millions of Americans began digging out and taking stock of storm damage.

At least 87 people died in the storm, most of them victims of automobile accidents or heart attacks that struck while shoveling snow. Retailers, already hurt by a sluggish Christmas season, lost more sales with the closure of malls and shops. And local governments are looking at multimillion-dollar bills for a cleanup that will take days.

Although some buried cities stirred Tuesday after being brought to a standstill by the blizzard, the recovery was slow. Airlines struggled to transport thousands of stranded passengers. Many city halls and schools, from Maryland to Massachusetts, remained closed. And the federal government in snow-clogged Washington was shut down by snow for the second day.

One snowbound federal worker, Ellen Toomey, who was dismayed at being idled by the budget crisis for 21 days and the weather for two, typed a computer message to no one in particular on America Online that read: “This just goes to show who’s really in charge. And it isn’t the sophomoric freshman class in Congress.”

Many snowfalls have caused greater damage and casualties--an 1888 blizzard killed 400 people in New York alone--but what made this storm so unusual was the length and breadth of its attack, which spared hardly a city between Atlanta and Bangor, Maine. In all, 17 states that are home to 103 million people were affected.

Snowfall records were set in Newark, N.J. (28 inches), Charleston, W. Va. (19), Cincinnati (14.4) and Philadelphia (30.7). Seventeen inches fell on Washington and more than 20 on New York City. The nation’s deepest snowfall--43 inches--was recorded in Webster County, W. Va., in Appalachia. Even Atlanta got an inch.

“You’ve got so much snow . . . you can’t just move it aside,” said Pennsylvania Gov. Thomas J. Ridge. Airports in Philadelphia, Washington, Boston and New York reopened on a limited basis Tuesday, a day after more than 2,000 flights in the East were canceled when runways filled with drifts up to 20 feet high. But airline officials said it would take several days before the backlog of passengers was cleared and schedules returned to normal.

More than 3,000 travelers trying to go to the East Coast were stranded in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport alone. Airlines were also scrambling to place their planes back on schedule after moving most of them out of the East just before the storm struck.

Amtrak said it would resume normal weekday schedules today along its busy Northeast Corridor between Richmond, Va., and Boston.

With the East generally enjoying clear skies Tuesday--except in Washington, where 3 more inches of snow fell--thousands of snowplows and salt-spreaders rumbled through city streets, pushing aside and carting away millions of tons of snow and leaving motorists to shovel passageways to free parked cars.

Snowplows running in tandem kept the Eastern interstates open, though traffic was often restricted to a lane or two. Greyhound buses, which had been idled in several cities, began moving again. But driving was slow and dangerous, and motorists in Maryland and Virginia were advised to stay off the roads unless they had essential business. Most heeded the warning, and traffic everywhere was unusually light.

New York City banned nonessential driving, and many downtown restaurants were empty, save for forlorn, tipless waiters standing idly by. City buses ran only 50% of their routes. One million schoolchildren stayed home for the second day, although the schools will be open today. Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani toured the boroughs by helicopter, no doubt mindful that former Mayor John V. Lindsay’s inattention to a snowstorm in Queens in the 1960s turned voters from the area against him in the next election.

In Washington, where the city government has a budget of $2.1 million for snow removal and is not noted for efficiency, only major thoroughfares had been plowed as of late Tuesday. Most of the downtown numbered streets and 731 miles of residential roads--and virtually all sidewalks--were untouched. Pedestrians trudged along rutted tire marks in the center of once-congested streets, and residents fumed as they tried to free buried cars.

One Washington neighborhood took up a door-to-door collection to hire a private contractor to clear its streets. “In the 12 years I’ve lived here, I’ve only seen a city plow on these streets once,” said Margaret Goodman, one of the residents, “and I’m not counting on it this time.”

With business in Washington at a near standstill, the quiet Holiday Inn Capitol put up police officers who could not make it home for $15 a night, about $115 less than its regular rate. In neighboring Alexandria, Va., Tom Meeks, who owns a string of Domino’s pizza outlets, personally delivered pizzas in his $60,000 Humvee.

Said Alexandria resident Andrea Levario: “Unless you’re driving a four-wheel drive, you’re not getting out of my neighborhood.”

The Red Cross continued to appeal for blood donors, and in several states, hospitals asked volunteers with four-wheel-drive vehicles to shuttle doctors and nurses to and from work. At Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, 130 volunteers answered the call. More than 2,000 National Guardsmen helped stranded motorists and assisted police officers and firefighters in Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.

Virtually everyone was affected. Homeless shelters were jammed throughout the region. And with millions of workers staying home, Bell Atlantic reported that its call volume jumped 58% Monday, partly because telecommuters sat at their computers and dialed into their offices, the Internet and online services.

Postal deliveries in the Washington area were canceled Tuesday for the second day.

Even as the sound of shovels scraping pavement filled the day in Washington, Baltimore and New York, residents had no great sense of relief that the worst of winter was over. The weekend forecast was for more snow, with 3 to 5 inches possible in Massachusetts and lighter snow in New York.

Times staff writers Marlene Cimons in Washington and John J. Goldman in New York contributed to this story.