NEW YORK - A blizzard continued to pummel the Northeastern United States on Saturday, disrupting thousands of flights, shutting down roads and mass transit and blanketing the region with heavy snowfall.
Hundreds of thousands of people lost power, with more than 200,000 reported outages in Massachusetts, more than 100,000 in Rhode Island, and 30,000 in Connecticut, according to local utilities.
Forecasters warned that about 60 cm of snow would blanket most of the Boston area with some spots getting as much as 76 cm. New York was due to get about 30 cm in some areas, while heavy snowfall was also expected in Connecticut and Maine.
Winds reached 56 to 64 km per hour by Friday afternoon and forecasters expected gusts up to 97 kph as the evening wore on.
The storm prompted the governors of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and Maine to declare states of emergency in the face of the fearsome snowstorm. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick took the rare step of announcing a ban on most car travel starting Friday afternoon, while Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy closed the state's highways to all but emergency vehicles.
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