February 26, 2010
NBC News and news services
PHILADELPHIA - A windy winter storm knocked out power to more than 1 million homes and businesses in the Northeast on Friday, fanned a hotel fire in coastal New Hampshire and disrupted travel.
High winds combined with heavy snow were helping bring down power lines.
Photo: A utility lineman works to restore power in Peterborough, N.H., on Wednesday after snow toppled trees onto power lines. (Jim Cole / AP)
About 330,000 homes and business have lost power in New Hampshire alone. Even the state Emergency Operations Center in New Hampshire was operating on a generator. A wind gust of more than 90 mph was reported in the state.
A total of nearly 800,000 more customers were in the dark in states from Maine to Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Officials were also blaming the wind for fanning a hotel fire in Hampton, N.H., and destroying an entire block of businesses.
Rain and flooding are the big problems in northern New England. Farther south, snow is clogging roads and airport runways. Thousands of flights have been canceled, including more than 900 which were due to leave New York airports.
New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg has decided to give the nation's largest public school district a rare snow day after 17 inches fell there.
NBC News reported the National Weather Service measured 9.4 inches of snow in Central Park on Thursday. That breaks the 7.5 inches recorded in 1874.
From Pennsylvania to Maine
The strongest wind and heaviest snow was forecast for late Thursday and early Friday, with a foot or more of snow and high winds expected in parts of Pennsylvania, into New Jersey and New York and up to parts of New England.
Parts of western Maine received nearly a foot a snow, while Philadelphia received a dusting. About 9 inches of snow fell in New York City, where a man was killed by a falling snow-laden tree branch in Central Park — one of at least three deaths being blamed on the storm.
Photo: A wind gust turned this commuter's umbrella inside out Thursday in Philadelphia. Gusts up to 60 mph were forecast for later in the day. (Matt Rourke / AP)
In parts of southern and mid-coastal Maine more than 3 inches of rain had fallen and forecasters say some areas could get more than 7 inches. The Presumpscot River in Westbrook was expected to crest at 9 feet over flood stage by Friday afternoon. The river in the flood-prone New Hampshire town of Goffstown was nearing flood stage and residents were told to prepare for possible evacuation.
Hundreds of flights were canceled at major East Coast airports.
The latest blast of winter was expected to linger more than 24 hours, meaning more headaches Friday. More snow is predicted for much of the region Saturday, too.
The National Weather Service put much of the East Coast under wind advisories and warnings until 7 a.m. Friday. The agency warned that winds could blow steadily between 20 and 30 mph in some areas, with gusts of 55 mph or higher in coastal and mountainous areas.
Even coastal New England, which was seeing rain but nothing like the 18 inches of snow expected in some parts of northern New Jersey and upstate New York, was under coastal flood watches.
While forecasters can predict the snow totals and what that will mean — slippery roads, a snow day for the kids — it's trickier to know whether winds might create havoc.
Your tree may fall down; your neighbor's may not," said Kristina Pydynowski, a meteorologist for AccuWeather, a private forecasting company in State College, Pa.
She said dense, wet snow weighing down trees would make it more likely for strong winds to knock them down. And power will probably be hardest to restore in areas where heavy snow keeps repair crews at bay.
Photo: A plow pushes snow onto parked cars in Brooklyn. (Justin Lane / EPA)
- In upstate New York, a storm that hit the area with up to 2 feet of snow Wednesday left some 150,000 homes and businesses without power. About 49,000 utility customers remained without power late Thursday, most in the Hudson Valley.
- Vermont had more than 10,000 outages. Nearly 4,900 utility customers in New Jersey were without electricity and there were about 2,000 customers without power throughout Pennsylvania.
- Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agency spokesman Jack Lewis said National Guard forces rescued dozens of high school students on a ski trip in Susquehanna County in northeastern Pennsylvania when their buses got stuck on Route 374. The 70 students and chaperones were taken to a Red Cross center in Uniondale, and no injuries were reported
- The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation banned motorcycles, recreation vehicles and commercial traffic on interstates 380 and 84 — with the exceptions of school buses and tow trucks responding to accidents. There was also a tractor-trailer ban on the Pennsylvania Turnpike's Northeast Extension.
Jackknifed Truck
After dropping his load of New York City trash at a landfill in Seneca Falls, N.Y., truck driver Carlos Quintero, 62, was heading back to the city on Interstate 380 in northeastern Pennsylvania when he lost control of his rig and it jackknifed.
Photo: A man pushes a car in during the morning commute in Brooklyn, New York on Friday, Feb. 26. A windy winter storm moving through the Northeast knocked out power and caused travel delays. (Brendan McDermid / Reuters)
For a few heart-stopping moments, Quintero thought he was going to plunge down a steep, 30-foot embankment. But the guardrail had just enough stopping power.
"I thought I go all the way down the hill," said Quintero, of Haddonfield, N.J. "It happened so fast I can't do nothing."
Traffic backed up for several miles as crews worked to free the big rig. The highway reopened after about 90 minutes.
Some road conditions worsened Thursday night. Trucks got stuck on Interstate 81 near Scranton, Pa., and part of Interstate 84 was closed at the Pennsylvania-New York state line due to a jackknifed tractor-trailer. In New Jersey, dozens of accidents were reported and speeds limits were reduced.
Parts of western Maine received nearly a foot a snow, while southern and mid-coastal sections of the state received more than 3 inches of rain and faced up to 7 more inches. The Presumpscot River in Westbrook was expected to crest at 9 feet over flood stage by Friday afternoon.
Several major roads were closed in the flood-prone New Hampshire town of Goffstown, police said, and slight flooding along the Piscataquog River had water creeping toward nearby houses. Residents were told to prepare for possible evacuation.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35557603/ns/weather/