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Widespread power outages reported as more than a foot of snow falls on parts of the Northeast
A major winter storm dumped more than a foot of snow on parts of the Northeast, knocking out power, and more snow was on the way, forecasters said Tuesday.
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A major winter storm dumped more than a foot of snow on parts of the Northeast, knocking out power at one point to more than 250,000 customers, with more snow on the way Wednesday, forecasters said.
No deaths have been reported in the nor’easter that has been hitting New England and other states. More than 2 feet of snow had been reported in parts of Worcester County, Massachusetts, by early Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service.
Snowfall was expected to continue over parts of New York and New England on Wednesday before slowly starting to taper off through Thursday morning, the weather service said.
“This isn’t over,” Vermont Gov. Phil Scott said Tuesday. “We have some concerns about what the high winds are going to bring and more snow to other parts of the state. A lot of power outages in the southern part.”
More than 20 inches of snow was recorded in Rutland County, Vermont, by 10 p.m. Tuesday, according to the weather service.
The agency had warned Tuesday afternoon that 6 to 12 more inches of snow was possible into Wednesday. Forecasters in Boston said another 1 to 3 inches was possible overnight into Wednesday.
More than 220,000 customers were still without power in New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine as of early Wednesday, according to the tracking website PowerOutage.us. The utility National Grid said heavy, wet snow and winds caused widespread damage to its systems.
More than 700 flights to or out of LaGuardia Airport in New York, Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and Logan International Airport in Boston were canceled Tuesday, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware.
By early Wednesday, just a few dozen flights were listed as canceled for those airports, with a total of just over 165 flights within, to and out of the United States canceled. More than 440 flights were delayed, according to FlightAware.
In Derry, New Hampshire, where around a foot of snow fell, a child was trapped by a falling tree, the fire department said. Firefighters and police officers used chain saws and their bare hands to free the child, who was taken to a hospital and had minor injuries, the department said.
"Please stay off the roads if possible," New Hampshire State Police tweeted Tuesday, warning of whiteout conditions. There were more than 120 crashes and vehicles off the road from 5 a.m. to noon, it said.
Meanwhile, in California, more than 230,000 homes and businesses were without power late Tuesday local time as an "atmospheric river" continued to affect the state, according to PowerOutage.us and the weather service.
More than 800,000 people in the western U.S. were under flood warnings late Tuesday, the weather service said.
The rain had mainly ended in San Francisco, but forecasters there had warned of high winds. San Francisco International Airport said strong winds forced a ground stop, which was lifted later.
A windowpane was blown off a San Francisco high-rise building, which caused the fire department to tell people to shelter in place because of falling glass, according to the agency and NBC Bay Area. No injuries were reported.
“The wind was blowing extremely hard. It was tough to even walk, and you really had to kind of lean into it,” San Francisco resident Andrew Bowers told the station. “And then benches started tipping over, and I just heard a loud boom.”
Bowers said that people ran when the glass shattered on the street and that they took cover beneath an overhang of a building.
In Monterey County, crews worked to finish filling the width of a 400-foot breach in a levee by the Pajaro River, which opened during heavy rains late Friday and flooded the town of Pajaro, officials said.
That will slightly reduce the flow out of the river, but work to build up the wall to levee height is expected to take one to two weeks, Monterey County said. A second breach that opened near the river mouth was letting water flow to the ocean and lowering flood levels, it said.
A mudslide caused major damage to a home in Colfax, in Placer County, northeast of Sacramento, said the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire. There were no injuries and everyone was accounted for, it said.
Heavy rain in central and southern parts of California through Tuesday night could cause flooding in areas already vulnerable because of recent rain, the weather service said.
Part of Oceano, a community of around 7,000 in San Luis Obispo County, was under an evacuation order Tuesday evening, the county said. The area was south of the Arroyo Grande Creek levee and near the Oceano Lagoon, it said. Residents in other areas were warned to be ready to leave.
In the southern and southeastern U.S., more than 38 million people were under freeze warnings, the agency said. Northern Alabama could get temperatures of 25 degrees Wednesday morning, the weather service in Birmingham said.