WASHINGTON — Life in the nation’s capital ground to a halt Friday as steady snow fell, the beginning of a storm that forecasters said could be the biggest for the city in modern history.
A record 2 1/2 feet or more was predicted for Washington, where snow was falling heavily by evening and forecasters warned that blizzard conditions were on the way. Big amounts of snow were expected elsewhere throughout the mid-Atlantic, and authorities already blamed the storm for hundreds of accidents and the deaths of father-son good Samaritans in Virginia.
A few thousand people in West Virginia lost electricity, and more outages were expected. A hospital fire in Washington sent about three dozen patients scurrying from their rooms to safety in a basement. The blaze started when a snowplow truck caught fire near the building, but no injuries were reported.
The region’s second snowstorm in less than two months could be “extremely dangerous,” the National Weather Service said. Heavy, wet snow and strong winds threatened to clog roads and paralyze transportation and retail.
Airlines canceled flights, schools closed and the federal government sent workers home, where they could be stuck for several days in a region ill-equipped to deal with so much snow. Some hospitals asked people with four- wheel-drive vehicles to volunteer to pick up doctors and nurses to take them to work.
Before the heavy snow started falling, shoppers jammed aisles and emptied stores of milk, bread and shovels. Many shoppers found they were too late.
At a Safeway in Hanover, Md., there wasn’t a single egg in the store, and only a few bottles of milk remained.
“I’ve come from two other places that are out of milk and sour cream,” said Cheryl Conner, 50, of Hanover. “This one’s out of sour cream too; it’s crazy.”
In western Virginia, a tractor-trailer struck and killed a father and son who had stopped to help another driver who had wrecked in snow on Interstate 81, Virginia State Police said.
