Blizzard blankets Northeast, 21 dead

The worst blizzard in seven years shut down much of the Northeast on Presidents Day with blinding, windblown snow that piled up as much as 4 feet deep and left more than a quarter of a million homes and businesses shivering without power.\nAt least 21 deaths had been blamed on the storm system since it charged out of the Plains during the weekend, piling snow in the Ohio Valley, producing mudslides and floods in the southern Appalachians, and making layers of ice that snapped trees and power lines.\nThe storm was headed for New England, where Massachusetts expected up to 2 feet of snow and minor coastal flooding.\nAirports for Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York largely shut down, stranding thousands of passengers trying to leave and get into the region. Amtrak's north-south service was halted between Washington and Richmond, Va., and regional bus service stopped in many areas.\nThe holiday meant there were few commuters, but police from Kentucky to Massachusetts pleaded with motorists to stay home and some counties banned nonessential travel so they could clear the roads.\n"This is going to be days worth of cleanup," said Maryland Highway Administration spokesman David Buck.\nThe western tip of Maryland was buried, with 49 inches of snow in Garrett County on top of 30-foot drifts left by earlier storms.\n"It's no man's land out there," said Garrett County state highway supervisor Paul McIntyre, whose office window in Keysers Ridge, elevation 2,900 feet, was entirely blocked by snow. "It looks more like Siberia than Maryland."\nElsewhere, 27 inches fell in West Virginia's Berkeley County, the National Weather Service said. The Seven Springs ski resort area on western Pennsylvania had 40 inches.\nIt was one of the worst snowstorms in a century in Washington, where 16 inches fell. For the region as a whole, it was the worst snowstorm since the blizzard of 1996, when at least 80 deaths were blamed on the weather.\nAmong the many travelers stranded by the storm, few were as far from home as Lynn Anderson of Belfast, Ireland.\n"It's turned into a complete nightmare," said Anderson, who arrived in Philadelphia on Sunday hoping to go to Williamsburg, Va., but had to stay overnight in a downtown Philadelphia hotel.\nStaff members at Baltimore-Washington International Airport distributed blankets and pillows to the some 150 travelers who spent the night there. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates Newark, Kennedy and LaGuardia airports, supplied cots and blankets.\nThousands of travelers trying to get home from vacations were stuck at Florida airports.\n"We got in here Sunday afternoon and were told we weren't going anywhere until Wednesday morning," said Thomas Gibbons of Philadelphia, who had spent a vacation with his wife and two other couples in the Dominican Republic. Gibbons, who found hotel rooms for him and his traveling companions, took the delay in stride.\n"It could be worse -- it's gorgeous here in Miami, and the hotel has a nice pool," he said.\nThe heavy snow was blamed for several roof collapses in New Jersey, including one that killed a man at a job-training school in Edison. In Maryland, a roof fell in at the B & O Railroad Museum in Baltimore.\nOhio Gov. Bob Taft declared three southern counties disaster areas Monday because of the snow and ice. Disaster and emergency declarations also had been issued by governors in New York, Kentucky, New Jersey, West Virginia, Maryland and Delaware.\nStates had thousands of crews plowing and spreading salt. Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich said the storm had cost between $20 million and $30 million -- and the state was already $14 million over budget for road cleanup this season.\nNew York Mayor Michael Bloomberg estimated the storm, measured in Central Park at 19.5 inches by early evening, already had cost his city around $20 million. By early evening, the snow had ended in the city.\nPlows built piles of snow two stories high along some streets, including Fifth Avenue near the Saks department store in Midtown Manhattan, where tourists took pictures of each other standing on the gigantic mounds of snow.\nAn estimated 100,000 customers lost power in West Virginia, with 20,000 in the Carolinas, 62,000 in Ohio, 96,000 in Kentucky and 6,000 in Virginia.\nWeather-related deaths included two in Illinois, one in Nebraska, six in West Virginia, six in Missouri, one in Ohio, one in New Jersey and four in Iowa.\nIn Tennessee, two children were missing after the car in which they were riding was swept off a bridge by high water late Sunday. The car had not been found Monday. Their aunt, who was driving, was rescued.