Storm Dumps Foot of Snow in East...01/25/00
By Paul Nowell Associated Press Writer

An unexpectedly fast-moving nor'easter charged up the East Coast today with more than a foot of wind-blown snow, closing airports and thousands of schools and making the morning commute dangerous.

Tens of thousands of people were without power.

Snow had already fallen 18 inches deep in North Carolina and more than a foot was possible in New England by tonight. Wind gusting to 30 mph made it feel well below zero from New Jersey to New England.

"People kept saying, 'We haven't had winter,'" said Richard Jones, a forecaster with the National Weather Service in Raleigh, N.C. "I guess this will show them."

Thomas Allen looked out his front door this morning in Raleigh and knew immediately he wouldn't make it to work. "The snow has completely covered my car," he said. "It's gone. I can't even see it."

Snowfall totals of 14 inches were forecast for Virginia and the Washington suburbs, with 18 inches possible in eastern Pennsylvania.

Virginia hospitals called for volunteers with four-wheel-drive vehicles to take doctors and nurses to work. "We're having a great response," with about 50 volunteer drivers, said Mark Canada at Johnston-Willis Hospital north of Richmond.

Schools and businesses were closed from South Carolina to Maine, including 1,000 schools in southeastern Pennsylvania and nearly all schools in New Jersey and Maryland.

Slippery roads caused hundreds of traffic accidents. Four traffic deaths were blamed on the weather in South Carolina with one in North Carolina.

Two children walking to school in heavy snow fell into the Housatonic River at Great Barrington, Mass., this morning. One was rescued and divers searched for the second.

Major Eastern airports closed today, including New York's LaGuardia and Washington Reagan National Airport, and others had delays and cancellations, including Boston's Logan International.

"There's a potential that we might not get flights in and out at all today," said Mike Blanton, spokesman for Raleigh-Durham International Airport, where snow was 17 inches deep on runways.

In Washington, most federal agencies were shut down. However, the U.S. Supreme Court stayed open for business as usual, thanks to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, a native of snowier Wisconsin.

Legislative sessions were called off in Delaware and Pennsylvania, and Delaware Gov. Thomas Carper had to cancel his State of the State address for a second time in a week because of snow.

North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt declared a state of emergency today, urging everyone to stay home, and the National Guard was activated to help clear streets and rescue stranded motorists.

The storm's arrival was a surprise in the Northeast.

"We knew it was coming. It just decided to hit us a day earlier," said weather service meteorologist Tim Morrin in New York. "It's an intense winter storm, about as intense as we thought it could be, and it's hitting us with its full potential."

"It's a nor'easter, with a capital N. Actually, you can capitalize all the letters with this storm," said Jack Boston of the private AccuWeather weather service in State College, Pa.

Tiny Buffalo, S.C., seemed more like Buffalo, N.Y., with more than a foot of snow on the ground.

"It's just like a Christmas card," said Buffalo resident Clorise Duncan. "It's a pure sheet of snow, and it's just so pretty, so pretty."

About 370,000 customers in North and South Carolina were without power early today. Some 70,000 customers in northern Georgia were still without electricity today after a weekend ice storm that blacked out approximately 500,000.

The nor'easter hampered utility repair efforts today.

"Visibility is very poor," said Sally Ramey, a spokeswoman with the North Carolina utility CP&L. "With wind gusts at 40 miles per hour, it's just not safe to have somebody up there working on a power line in a bucket truck."

In the West, the biggest winter storm of the season lingered across the Sierra Nevada after dumping more than 3 feet of snow. Storm warnings were issued for western Nevada and the Lake Tahoe region.