U.S. East Coast walloped by storm, 5 dead

A massive and deadly winter storm on the U.S. East Coast threatens to dump as much as 45 centimetres of snow from the Carolinas to Maine and unleash hurricane-force winds and damaging flooding. Schools and offices were closed, and thousands of flights cancelled.

Forecasters expected the system to be followed immediately by a blast of face-stinging cold air that could break records in more than two dozen cities, with wind chills falling to –40 C in some places this weekend.

Blizzard warnings and states of emergency are in wide effect, and wind gusts hit more than 113 km/h in some places. Eastern Massachusetts and most of Rhode Island braced for snow falling as fast as seven centimetres per hour.

5 dead from vehicle accidents

Four people were killed in North and South Carolina after their vehicles ran off snow-covered roads, authorities said.

Another fatality was reported near Philadelphia when a car could not stop at the bottom of a steep, snow-covered hill and slammed into a commuter train. A passenger in the vehicle was killed. No one on the train was hurt.

In Boston, the storm caused heavy snowfall and flooding in some areas of the city. The storm was expected to continue into the evening. Even the Boston Bruins NHL hockey game was cancelled.

At a news conference Thursday afternoon, Walsh asked people to stay in their homes.

"It's not a night to go out to bar rooms," he said. "The plows can't see you, and they can't stop on a dime. If you're going to be walking, do not have headphones on."

More than 100,000 homes and businesses along the coast lost power at some point Thursday. While many outages were restored by the day's end, officials from the mid-Atlantic states to New England warned that those numbers might climb again as strong wind gusts and frigid temperatures continue through Saturday. 

In New England, the powerful winds brought coastal flooding that reached historic levels in areas. The frigid waters overwhelmed fishing piers, streets and restaurants, and stranded people in homes and cars, prompting dozens of evacuations and rescues.

In Portland, Maine, the high tide nearly matched the 4.3 metres reported during the infamous Blizzard of 1978 that walloped the Northeast.

In Boston, icy harbour waters poured into downtown streets near popular tourist and business areas. The National Weather Service said the waters reached "within a few tenths of an inch" of record levels and local officials across coastal Massachusetts braced for further tidal surges.

Roads impassable in Boston

The National Weather Service received multiple reports of coastal flooding in Massachusetts, including in Boston, Lynn and Cape Cod, that made roads impassable.

On Twitter, Michelle Mastro documented the storm's impact in Weymouth, Mass., with a series of videos shot from the window of her home that showed a seawall destroyed by the floods. Weymouth is a city in metropolitan Boston.

At a news conference later Thursday, Massachusetts Lt.-Gov. Karyn Polito said floods were reported in 26 of the 78 coastal communities in the state.

"High water vehicles have been dispensed," said Polito, noting that the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency will continue to work with flooded communities to asses damage and allocate resources for rebuilding.

Much of the flooding resulted from the highest high tide ever reported in Massachusetts, said Gov. Charlie Baker at the same news conference.

In Maine, the problem was a shortage of drivers to deliver heating fuel. Small independent fuel merchants in particular were overwhelmed by customers who do not have automatic refill service, the Portland Press Herald reported.

Eastern U.S. hit by massive winter storm

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Snow, wind, cold felt from Carolinas to New England

Authorities in Eastern Canada were also grappling with the effects of the storm. Nova Scotia Power was with outages and many schools across the province had cancelled Thursday classes. Meanwhile, Environment Canada issued a winter storm warnings for all of neighbouring New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.

Air travel disruptions

More than two-thirds of flights in and out airports in the New York City area and Boston were cancelled. The flight-tracking site FlightAware reported nearly 4,800 cancelled flights across the United States.
 
Rail service was affected too. Amtrak planned to operate a modified schedule between New York and Boston on Thursday. Northeast Regional Service between Washington, D.C., and Newport News/Norfolk, Va., was cancelled for Thursday.

Record lows expected

Waiting just behind the storm was a wave of bracing cold.

National Weather Service meteorologist Dan Peterson said record low temperatures were predicted for 28 major cities across New England, eastern New York and the mid-Atlantic states by dawn Sunday.

Boston expected a low around –24 overnight Saturday into Sunday. Portland, Maine, and Burlington, Vt., could see –26 and –28, respectively, the weather service said.

State and local officials urged people to stay home so crews could clear streets and roads of snow. There were concerns in Boston and elsewhere that if roads were not properly cleared, they could freeze into cement-like ice after the cold blast arrives.

In other areas, plummeting temperatures had already caused water mains to burst. Jackson, Miss., was under a precautionary boil-water notice after pipes failed. Portable toilets were placed outside the state Capitol because some of the toilets would not flush.

The massive storm began two days ago in the Gulf of Mexico and first struck the Florida Panhandle.
 
It was so cold in South Florida that iguanas fell from their perches in trees in suburban Miami. The reptiles become immobile when temperatures dip below 5 C.