Heavy Snow and Winds Batter Northeast

y powerful storm swept fast and furiously across the Northeast on Saturday, dumping mountains of snow, forcing hundreds of motorists to abandon their cars at the height of the blizzard and knocking out power for hundreds of thousands of people.

Even with the storm still raging on Saturday morning, officials in Massachusetts ordered the evacuation of some communities along the coast as waves lashed the shoreline and high tide brought a surge of water inland.Through the night, winds gusted with hurricane force in some places, downing power lines and creating white-out conditions. More than three feet of snow fell in parts of Connecticut, and more than two feet were reported on Long Island and in Massachusetts, with the storm still doing damage as day broke.States of emergency were declared in four states on Friday. The governor of Massachusetts banned travel on all roads as night fell, an order that remained in effect on Saturday. In Connecticut, where the governor had ordered no cars on state highways on Friday night, residents were told early Saturday morning to stay off all roads.Still, whether by choice or necessity, hundreds of drivers tried to travel home on Friday night and beat the nor’easter as the winds whipped. On Long Island, the storm descended so quickly that hundreds were forced to abandon their cars on the highways and streets as roads became impassable.Snowplow drivers worked furiously to clear roads, but the snow limited what they could do.“It’s really hard right now, it’s wet, it’s heavy and it’s freezing, so everything is going slow,” said Jack Mandaneza, 31, as he took a break from plowing on the Long Island Expressway at the height of the storm.Barbara Barkiano, 43, a housecleaner, tried to make her way along the highway behind the plows, but the snow snapped both windshield wipers on her Honda Civic hybrid.“My knees are shaking,” she said stopping at a gas station to hand-scrape snow from her windshield. She added, “I’m going to stay right here for a while.”The storm’s impact was felt by more than 40 million people, from northern New Jersey to Maine.The most immediate problem is moving people out of homes where they have lost power, Massachusetts state officials said at a briefing Saturday morning. National Guard soldiers have been deployed, mainly in the southeastern part of the state, to retrieve people and take them to warming centers and shelters, but even members of the Guard have been trapped at home; only about 2,000 soldiers of a force of more than 5,000 have been able to respond.High tide started at 10:15 a.m., and the waves off the south shore of Boston and parts of Cape Cod have measured as high as 15 and 20 feet. Officials expect major coastal flooding and are trying to evacuate residents as soon as possible.Despite the best efforts to clear roads Kurt Schwartz, director of the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency, said they are “struggling to keep up with the snow.”For many, the memory of Hurricane Sandy — and its terrible toll — was still fresh as they crowded supermarkets and supply stores to stock up as the storm bore down on the region.Long lines at gas stations, and scattered reports that places were running out of fuel led Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York to warn people not to “panic buy” gasoline.The storm played out the way many forecasters said it would — with New York City spared from the worst of the storm, and points to the north and east hit harder.Overnight, temperatures across the region dropped precipitously in Boston, and created dangerous conditions for the hundreds of thousands of people without power.Instead of dissipating overnight, the storm seemed to gain strength in the Boston area, and on Saturday morning winds topping 70 miles per hour still whipped through some towns and cities, creating massive snowdrifts and forcing people to simply sit inside and ride it out.