Record snow wallops East, turns deadly

11 killed; downed trees, branches knock out power to 3.1 million

Department of Public Works employees Tom Vesely (left) and John Lewis clear a tree off a house Sunday on Hudson Street in Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y.
Department of Public Works employees Tom Vesely (left) and John Lewis clear a tree off a house Sunday on Hudson Street in Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y.

— A freak October nor’easter knocked out power to more than 3.1 million homes and businesses across the Northeast on Sunday in large part because leaves still on the trees caught more snow, overloading branches that snapped and wreaked havoc.

The storm lashed the region with 69 mph winds. Close to 2 feet of snow fell in some areas over the weekend, and it was particularly wet and heavy, making the storm even more damaging.

“You just have absolute tree carnage with this heavy snow just straining the branches,” said National Weather Service spokesman Chris Vaccaro.

From Maryland to Maine, officials said it would take days to restore electricity, even though the snow ended Sunday.

The storm smashed record snowfall totals for October and worsened as it moved north. Communities in western Massachusetts were among the hardest hit. Snowfall totals topped 27 inches in Plainfield, and nearby Windsor had 26 inches by early Sunday.

The snowstorm was blamed for at least 11 deaths, and states of emergency were declared in New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts and parts of New York.

More than 800,000 power customers were without electricity in Connecticut alone — shattering the record set just two months ago by Hurricane Irene. Massachusetts had more than 670,000 without power, and New Jersey had nearly 575,000 — including Gov. Chris Christie’s house. Parts of Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, New York, Maine, Maryland and Vermont also were without power.

“It’s going to be a more difficult situation than we experienced in Irene,” Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy said. “We are expecting extensive and long-term power outages.

“Some people could be without power for as much as a week,” he said.

Thirty-two shelters were open around the state. Malloy asked volunteer fire departments to allow people in for warmth and showers, and had food and 900 cots sent to Bradley International Airport for stranded travelers. At least four hospitals were relying on generators for power.

Around Newtown in western Connecticut, trees were so laden with snow on some back roads that the branches touched the street. Every few minutes, a snap filled the air as one broke and tumbled down. Roads that were plowed became impassible because the trees were falling so fast.

One of the few businesses open in the area was a Big Y grocery store that had a generator. Customers loaded up on supplies, heard news updates over the intercom, charged up their cell phones, and waited for a suddenly hard-to-get cup of coffee — in a line that was 30 people deep and growing.

Many of the areas hit by the storm had also been hit by Irene. In New Jersey’s Hamilton Township, Tom Jacobsen also recalled heavy spring flooding and a particularly heavy winter before that.

“I’m starting to think we really ticked off Mother Nature somehow, because we’ve been getting spanked by her for about a year now,” he said while grabbing some coffee at a convenience store.

In Concord, N.H., Dave Whitcher’s company had yet to prep its sanding equipment before the storm dropped nearly 2 feet of snow. His crews were plowing and shoveling parking lots Sunday and would be back today to salt sidewalks and walkways.

“It was a bit of a surprise, the amount and how heavy it was. We should’ve probably come out and got a little earlier start, but we did all right,” Whitcher said. He held up his shovel and added, “Me and this guy are going to get to know each other real well today.”

Vaccaro, the weather service spokesman, said the snowstorm “absolutely crushed previous records that in some cases dated back more than 100 years.” Saturday was only the fourth snowy October day in New York’s Central Park since record-keeping began 135 years ago.

There usually isn’t enough cold air in the region to support a nor’easter this time of year, but an area of high pressure over southeastern Canada funneled cold air south into the U.S., Vaccaro said. That cold air combined with moisture coming from the North Carolina coast to produce the unseasonable weather.

Though the fact that leaves were still on the trees worsened storm damage inland, the nor’easter did less damage in coastal areas than it would have in winter because warm ocean temperatures limited snowfall, Vaccaro said.

A few businesses enjoyed the early snow. Ski resorts in Vermont and Maine opened early. But it was more commonly an aggravation.

Many residents were urged to avoid travel altogether. Speed limits were reduced on bridges between New Jersey and Pennsylvania. A few roads closed because of accidents and downed trees and power lines, said Sean Brown, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

The storm caused 1,268 flights to be canceled Saturday, according to Flightaware. com. Commuter trains in Connecticut and New York were delayed or suspended because of downed trees and signal problems.

Amtrak suspended service on several Northeast routes, and one train from Chicago to Boston got stuck overnight in Palmer, Mass. The 48 passengers had food and heat, a spokesman said, and they were taken by bus Sunday to their destinations.

Five people died in Pennsylvania because of the storm, including two each in separate car accidents in suburban Philadelphia. An 84-year-old Temple man was killed Saturday afternoon when a snow-laden tree fell on his home while he was napping in his recliner.

In Connecticut, the governor said one person died Saturday in a Colchester traffic accident that he blamed on slippery conditions. In New York, a 54-year-old Long Island woman died Sunday morning after she lost control of her car on an icy road and struck another vehicle.

Two New Jersey residents were killed in the storm. An elderly Franklin Lakes man died late Saturday in a house fire sparked by a downed power line. On the Hamburg Turnpike in Wayne, a Haledon man died after his vehicle hit a parked utility truck hoisting a worker inside a bucket who was mending power lines. The worker suffered minor injuries.

And a 20-year-old man in Springfield, Mass., stopped when he saw police and firefighters examining downed wires and stepped in the wrong place and was electrocuted, Capt. William Collins said.

The snowstorm also was blamed for a death in Canada. Authorities said road conditions and high speed were factors in the death of a driver on eastern Prince Edward Island. Heavy rainfall and snow soaked parts of Atlantic Canada as the storm churned northward.

The snow was a bone-chilling slush in New York City, and was a taste of what’s to come for demonstrators camping out at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan for the Occupy Wall Street protest.

Nick Lemmin of Brooklyn spent his first night at Zuccotti in a sleeping bag in a tent, wearing thermals, a sweatshirt and a scarf.

“I slept actually pretty well,” he said. “It was pretty quiet.”

Lemmin said he thought the early snow was actually “a good test,” giving protesters a chance to deal with such weather before it sets in more permanently.

In Concord, 9-year-old Nate Smith had more than enough snow to make a proper snowman with his brother, but he was worried about Halloween. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to go trick-or-treating, and even if he did, his werewolf costume could end up looking a little different than he had imagined.

“I might have to put on snow pants,” he said.

Information for this article was contributed by Noreen Gillespie-Connolly, Ron Todt, Verena Dobnik, Deepti Hajela, Candice Choi, Mary Esch, Holly Ramer and Bruce Shipkowski of The Associated Press; by Dan Hart, Jim Polson, Mike Lee and Brian K. Sullivan of Bloomberg News; and by Geraldine Baum of the Los Angeles Times.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 10/31/2011

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