The Associated Press

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.

Tuesday, January 25, 2000

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.”

Snowfall totals of 14 inches were forecast for Virginia and the Washington suburbs, and 18 inches in eastern Pennsylvania. Virginia hospitals called for volunteers with four-wheel-drive vehicles to take doctors and nurses to work.

Schools and businesses were closed from Georgia to New York, with 1,000 schools shut down in southeastern Pennsylvania, and slippery roads caused hundreds of traffic accidents.

Four traffic deaths were blamed on the weather in South Carolina with one in North Carolina.

Major Eastern airports were closed today, including New York’s LaGuardia and Washington Reagan National Airport, and others had delays, including Boston’s Logan International. Officials at Baltimore-Washington International airport struggled this morning to keep one runway open.

”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 in North Carolina. Snow was 17 inches deep on runways.

In Washington, most federal agencies were shut down.

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.”

Delaware Gov. Thomas Carper had to cancel his State of the State address for a second time in a week because of snow. The state’s General Assembly also canceled its session and Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives also called off today’s session.

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.”

”I prayed for it, because I like the snow,” said Yvette Manning, 34, of Jersey City, N.J. She hoped to leave work early today so she could go home and play with her son.

Others didn’t share their opinion. Cynthia Vanderford’s family in Buffalo, S.C., had no power most of the day and she spent her time ”wishing the snow would stop.”

About 290,000 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 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.