Shovels Scrape Along East Coast
The dangerous storm that blasted the Midwest over the weekend turned on its heels and headed north up the East Coast, leaving a blanket of snow and slush from Maryland to Maine, reports CBS News Correspondent Diana Olick.
Schools were closed Monday in Baltimore and highway crews had to clear a 20-car pileup on a slick Interstate 70.
New Yorkers may have thought they were out of the woods this winter (after a nearly snowless season) but they got a cold reminder Monday that spring is still a week away. "It's springtime, looking forward to warm weather, not this!!" exclaimed one winter-weary Manhattanite.
The southwestern Pennsylvania city of Bedford got 18 inches; more than a foot piled up in southern Ohio and the hills of Virginia and West Virginia; 10 inches fell on parts of New Jersey and in Litchfield, Conn.
The trouble with snow this late in the season is that warm temperatures make it extra wet and heavy. While many areas may have gotten just a few inches from the recent storm, it was still enough to cause some serious damage.
Airlines had scattered delays and cancellations. Snow slowed traffic at Boston's Logan Airport, but Beantown itself missed the brunt of the storm.
Overhead wire problems delayed morning commuter trains in the Philadelphia area and in New Jersey. The heavy, wet snow also snapped power lines, causing tens of thousands to lose electricity in Philadelphia, Connecticut, Maryland, Tennessee, West Virginia, New Jersey, New York's Long Island and Massachusetts.
Pennsylvania's Legislature called off Monday's meetings in Harrisburg. Schools were closed in more than half of West Virginia's 55 counties.
The more than a foot of snow that fell on northern West Virginia's Preston County brought the total to more than 54 inches since March 1. Drifts stood 4 to 5 feet high. "This is the worst March we've had in years," Shelley Shaffer said in Manown, W.Va.
In Hancock, Md., about 200 travelers spent Sunday night on Red Cross cots at a school. "They were in the hallway, in the gymnasium, the auditorium, the cafeteria, anywhere they could find a spot," said Town Manager Louis Close.
Meteorologist Brian Norcross of CBS News station WFOR-TV in Miami says that old man winter may soon be gone, but spring, may also prove to be stormy.
The weather phenomenon known as La Nina is expected to wreak havoc in the coming season. The clash of warm and cold air -- the hallmark of La Nina -- may cause tornadoes and other severe weather systems in southern California and in the northeastern part of the nation.