A monster blizzard slammed the US East Coast dumping record amounts of snow in major cities from Washington to New York, paralysing life across a region with over 85 million people.
At least 10 people have died in traffic accidents on icy roads, six of them in North Carolina, with the snowstorm that began on Friday afternoon set to continue till early hours of Sunday.
Five more States declared emergency, bringing the total to 11, as the epic blizzard raged through the region. They included Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, West Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky, besides the District of Columbia.
More than 8,000 flights have been cancelled so far, while public transit services, including the Washington Metro, have been shut down. Tens of thousands of homes across the region from the Carolinas upward have suffered power outages as the storm packed wind speeds of up to 60 miles per hour.
Snow totals in Washington, believed to be on course to its worst-ever winter storm, reached the 12-18 inch range at different places as of Saturday morning. With the blizzard likely to hold sway till late at night, the snow accumulation is expected to go up to 16-30 inch.
The National Weather Service, however, said it was too soon to tell whether the snowfall will break records for Washington DC. “Either way, we’re looking at a significant event,” meteorologist Frank Pereira told CNN.
“Snowfall rates of up to 2 inches per hour have been observed early Saturday morning in the Washington, DC area, and rates up to 3 inches per hour have been recorded in the New York City area,” The Weather Channel reported, warning that the combination of strong winds and heavy snow will continue to create life-threatening whiteout conditions on Saturday.
The top snowfall total as of Saturday morning was in Terra Alta, West Virginia, which received 28 inches. Apart from the cities of Washington, Balti-more and Philadelphia, more than a foot of snow was reportedly to have already fallen in several States, including Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, New Jersey, North Carolina and Tennessee.