Winter storm buries southern New England

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - The third winter storm in three weeks buried parts of the Northeast in more than 2 feet of wet, blowing snow Wednesday, smothering highways, halting trains and plunging thousands of homes and businesses into cold darkness.

The storm, which iced over much of the South before sweeping up the East Coast, wreaked havoc on transportation across New England.

In Massachusetts, Gov. Deval Patrick declared a state of emergency and mobilized the National Guard. He said the storm brought more snow and a wetter kind of snow than officials expected, leaving more than 100,000 people without power or heat by noon.

Maria Rivera, 60, slept overnight in a food court booth at a travel plaza where she works on the Massachusetts Turnpike in Natick. She said the person providing her ride home to Worcester could not make it in the storm, and she had to be back for her Wednesday shift.

"I have to work," she said. "I have to pay my bills."

In New York, where city leaders took heavy criticism for their slow work after a Dec. 26 blizzard, officials rolled out a massive response that quickly cleared the streets. They also received some help from nature, with only 9 inches of snow falling in Central Park - well short of 20 inches in last month's storm.

This time, the deepest snow fell farther north.

The roof of an apartment building in Norwich partially collapsed under the weight of the snow, forcing 10 people from their homes. State troopers, working double shifts on orders of the governor, responded to about 900 spinouts, fender-benders and stranded vehicles.

By early afternoon, New Fairfield had 28 inches of snow, and Danbury had 24 inches. The 22.5 inches recorded at Bradley International Airport set a one-day record for snowfall in the Hartford area.

But the storm had no chance of touching the previous one-day record for the state of 30 inches, set in 1888 in Middletown and matched in 1969 in Falls Village.

Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said the state might qualify for federal money to pay for the cleanup.

"We're still in the position where we are simply trying to make sure that people are safe and that we can get commerce up and running as rapidly as possible," Malloy said.

The storm joined forces with another system passing through the Midwest and announced its arrival in New England with claps of thunder.

Motorists from the Carolinas to Maine were cautioned to stay off the roads, but that was not an option for Josh Clukey, 24, of Eastford, Conn. He ventured out with his pregnant wife began showing signs of labor after midnight. The drive to a hospital in Willimantic, normally 25 minutes, lasted a harrowing hour.

"It was a little scary. It was dark, and the snow was blowing all over the place. I drove really slow," said Clukey, whose son, Ryland James, was born at 8:42 a.m. "There was maybe only about 6 inches on the roads at the time, but the plows hadn't come out yet."

Scores of schools, businesses and government offices closed, and some planned to stay closed Thursday. More than 1,700 flights were canceled at the New York region's three airports, which were trying to resume normal operations Wednesday.

Commuter rail service was delayed or suspended across the region, and Amtrak suspended service between New York City and Boston because of damage to the overhead power system south of Boston.

In New York, Eric Winbush learned after he got to Penn Station that his Amtrak train to Boston had been canceled.

"I'm going to Boston because my father is on his deathbed," said Winbush, whose 90-year-old father was in a hospice. "My brothers and sisters are waiting on me."

Scattered power outages were reported in Connecticut and Rhode Island in addition to the blackouts in Massachusetts.

In Bridgewater, Mass., a suburb about 30 miles south of Boston that was without power, 89-year-old Primile Chiocha went to an emergency shelter wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with an ice-skating penguin holding a "Let it snow!" sign.

"I came mostly because I was cold and I wanted a cup of coffee," she said. "I hope I'm not here too long. I like to be home. There's nothing like home."

In New Jersey and New York, snowplow drivers mounted an overwhelming effort. The biggest complaint many New Yorkers could muster was that the constant scraping kept them up all night.

It was almost overkill: In the Bayside neighborhood of Queens, in an area where snowplows failed to visit for several days after Dec. 26, salt trucks or plows passed down one street at least nine times by late afternoon.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said crews would work even harder after criticism of how the city handled the blizzard, when hundreds of streets went unplowed, subway riders got stranded and medical calls were unanswered.

As the storm swept north, the National Weather Service reported snow on the ground in every state except Florida. That included Hawaii, which had 7 inches on the top of the Mauna Kea mountain.

"I think it has happened in the past, but it's not very often that it happens," said James Peronto of the weather service.

The weather has been blamed for at least 17 deaths and many more injuries since Sunday.

In Ohio, an athletic trainer was killed when a bus carrying members of a wrestling team from the University of Mount Union collided with a snowplow.

In the South, road crews lacked winter equipment, salt and sand to clear the roads, and millions of people just stayed home. Mail delivery was restricted, and many schools and other institutions canceled activities.

Some schools remained closed Wednesday in western North Carolina as well as in Charlotte, the state's largest city. Workers reported progress clearing highways, but many secondary roads remained dangerous because of ice.