Eastern seaboard
pounded by snow

WASHINGTON — Residents along the East Coast of the U.S. are battling the harshest storm in seven years, as temperatures plunge below freezing, and forecasters predict up to two feet of snow will fall by Monday.

“This storm will likely be remembered for years as the Blizzard of 2003!” states AccuWeather.

Forecast for snow accumulation (AccuWeather)

The forecasting service says the heaviest snowfall will occur from northern Virginia across northern West Virginia into southeastern Ohio, across Pennsylvania, northern Maryland, northern Delaware, New Jersey, southeastern New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and southern Massachusetts where at least 6-12 inches of snow will fall by daybreak Tuesday morning. Over a foot of snow was possible from northeastern West Virginia, northern Virginia, northern Maryland, southeastern Pennsylvania, northern Delaware, most of New Jersey and southeastern New York.

“We have everything we’ve got out on the roads,” Lora Rakowski of the Maryland Highway Administration told the Associated Press. “Our primary operation is plowing, plowing, plowing. It’s a very hazardous situation for motorists, so we’re advising people to stay home if they don’t have to be outside.”

This is already the largest storm this year, and it may be one of the top five in our recorded history, according to the official.

The governors of Maryland, West Virginia, and Delaware have all declared a state of emergency, and National Guard troops have been mobilized in Delaware to help clear roads of snow.

Baltimore-Washington International Airport was closed, as officials couldn’t clear the two runways of snow buildup.

“Our workers just can’t keep up with the amount of snow that’s falling,” spokesman John White told the Baltimore Sun.

Reagan Washington National Airport closed at 3:40 a.m., and Dulles Airport in Virginia was operating with only one runway open.

Conditions creating the snowstorm (AccuWeather)

In Harford County, Md., hospitals and nursing homes were asking local officials for four-wheel drive vehicles to help get medical workers to work.

“It’s very nerve-racking out there, because you can’t even find the road,” Merrie Street of the emergency-operations center told the Sun.

There have been several weather-related deaths reported, including two in Illinois, one in Nebraska, one in West Virginia, and one person killed in Iowa when an Amtrak train slammed into a car stuck on the tracks in drifting snow west of Danville, according to the Associated Press.

Greg Hannigan, an attorney from Hagerstown, Md., braved today’s bad weather to get to Sunday Mass, only to find he was the only one there.

“When Catholics don’t show up for church, you know it’s a bad storm,” he told AP.

The last big snow to hit the nation’s capital was in January 1996 when 17.1 inches were recorded.

In suburban Virginia, west of Washington, D.C., accumulations of more than a foot of snow were recorded by 10 p.m.