Prepared for Worst, Northeast Greets Blizzard

March 6 -- It came slowly, but when the storm that almost wasn't finally hit its peak, it battered much of the Northeast with heaps of snow and howling winds that whipped the New England area.

After flirting with the entire East Coast, the storm delivered a big wet, windy whack to the New England area today, pummeling Massachusetts and Maine. New Hampshire, Vermont and upstate New York got a dumping of snow: New York state got 28 inches in some areas, Vermont 29 inches, New Hampshire 23 inches, Massachusetts 24 inches and Maine 16 inches. New York City, Philadelphia and Washington D.C., seemed to have missed the worst.

Keene, in southwestern New Hampshire was hit with around 2 feet of snow, nearly half of which fell during a three-hour period overnight.

A public works foreman in Keene said plow crews had been working double shifts since Monday.

"The snow is really heavy so it's really packing to the roads and it's making it really rough to clear off," said Hollis Howard. "With the amount of snow we're getting, it's hard to put the salt down and the sand down because it isn't doing any good."

In coastal areas of New Hampshire, emergency workers braced for floods from high tides whipped by wind gusts up to 50 mph.

In Vermont, residents woke to the biggest storm of the season as traffic snarled and several major airlines canceled flights.

Forecasters predicted Southern Vermont would receive about 3 feet of snow and warned the storm would be slow to move out.

Breaking the Ice

The governor of Massachusetts declared a state of emergency and extended it through Wednesday. The National Guard sandbagged coastal areas and prepared to evacuate residents as high tides threatened the coast.

In Boston, people endured gusty winds and ploughed through inches of slush while some 23,000 Bostonians were hit with a power failure.

In Worcester, Mass., residents woke to about 18 inches of snow on top of a thick layer of ice, making for very treacherous driving in the region.