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Tens of thousands powerless in US as blizzard
pelts east coast
After a day of pelting wet snow, five states - New York,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island -
declared state of emergency, and Massachusetts, whose capital is
Boston, banned vehicles from every road in the state, the New York
Times reported. The storm that
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New York:
Over 650,000 homes and businesses in northeast America were left
without power in peak winter, thousands of flights were cancelled
and people were asked to stay off roads as a monster blizzard
buried cities from New York to Boston under mounds of snow.
By Saturday morning, the snowstorm was heading out to sea leaving
one person dead in its wake after dumping about two feet of snow
across New England and Long Island, according to the National
Weather Service (NWS).
Connecticut saw the most accumulation with over 20 inches in many
places, the NWS said in a bulletin early Saturday, but the
nor'easter has beaten up Massachusetts with winds howling at 60 to
75 mph.
It knocked out power to over 400,000 addresses there, accounting
for nearly two-thirds of all power breakdowns, CNN reported citing
the state's power companies.
After a day of pelting wet snow, five states - New York,
Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island -
declared state of emergency, and Massachusetts, whose capital is
Boston, banned vehicles from every road in the state, the New York
Times reported.
Rhode Island with a population of one million, just one-sixth of
Massachusetts' total, may have seen the worst power breakdowns
relative to its size, with over 180,000 customers losing power,
CNN said.
Snow covered the area from eastern Pennsylvania to Maine, the NWS
said. It has turned almost everything in sight white. Overnight
lows hovered in most of the Northeast below minus seven degrees
Celsius and should not get above freezing Saturday.
Instead of carrying its destructive power further inland, the way
superstorm Sandy did in early November, the nor'easter has begun
taking its fury off shore, according to CNN meteorologist Chad
Myers.
But the system continues to sling snow back toward land, as it
heads out over the Atlantic.
By Saturday afternoon, the storm's fury is likely to shift to the
Plains and Mountain States, where blizzards and heavy snows are
expected to last into Monday over a region larger than the
Northeast but far less populous, the news channel said.
Still, the only known loss of life from the storm so far occurred
in a vehicle accident in New York.
An 18-year-old woman lost control of her car due to the falling
snow and struck a 74-year-old man walking near the side of the
road, police in Poughkeepsie said. He died in hospital from his
injuries.
Hundreds of cars were stranded on the Long Island Expressway,
after motorists got stuck driving in the snow. They outnumbered
the number of tow trucks and crews deployed in the area for the
storm, according to the Suffolk County police.
Rail transportation has come to a virtual halt, with commuter
trains running on a patchwork schedule. Nearly 5,000 flights have
been cancelled to and from the Northeast Friday and Saturday.
Cities in the most populous section of America looked like ghost
towns, as streets usually bustling with traffic emptied out.
Residents followed the pleas by governors and mayors to
"basically, stay at home", as Boston Mayor Thomas Menino had
advised.
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