The Washington area was socked with its first major snowstorm of the winter Saturday, snarling roads and stranding air travelers, forcing cancellations of flights, parties and SAT tests, and delighting children who rolled snowmen in their yards.
With snow falling up to two inches an hour at its worst, officials beseeched residents to stay home while they put snow emergency plans into effect. Yet the region was largely spared a heavy, disabling snowfall like that blanketing much of the Northeast.
In New England, accumulations up to 20 inches were expected. In Washington, about 4 inches of snow had fallen by nightfall, as the storm slackened. Given the discrepancies, airport authorities advised travelers to check for flight delays or cancellations today on planes to Boston and New York City.
For a region that does not shrug off a few inches of snow with the aplomb of, say, Chicago, the impact of the storm was muted. On a Saturday, there was no rush hour to contend with. Many visitors in town for President Bush's inauguration had already left. And there was enough advance warning for people to stock up on provisions well before the first flake fell.
"Someone was smiling on George Bush," said Jack Johnson (D), Prince George's County Executive. "The storm would have been a disaster for a presidential inauguration. Snow, if it's going to come, on a weekend it's just better for everybody. On a Monday, it would have been too much to handle."
Local officials urged residents to stay inside, even Sunday, when gusting winds up to 40 miles an hour could stir up blinding flurries and cause temperatures to plummet into the single digits.
The snow started falling shortly before 9 a.m., sparsely at first then thick and wet as it intensified in the afternoon, causing numerous fender benders on icy roads with low visibility.
By mid-afternoon, road crews in Maryland, Virginia and the District were out in full force, clearing roadways for the dwindling traffic still moving. The sheer numbers were staggering. In Northern Virginia, 1,200 trucks and snowplows were sent out. In Maryland, at the storms peak at 4 p.m., about 2,100 crew members were operating 1,800 pieces of equipment.
Collisions came in multiples. By 4 p.m., Virginia reported 36 traffic accidents on interstates 395, 495, 66 and the Dulles Toll Road, according to the Virginia Department of Transportation. None was serious, they said, and officials sighed with relief that it was not worse.
"Everyone obviously heeded the warnings of the forecasters and stayed off the roads," said Alan Etter, a spokesman for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department. He said there were about 30 snow-related traffic accidents in the District, none serious.
In one incident, however, a 70-year-old Pennsylvania man was seriously injured when a Montgomery County Ride-On bus skidded into a bus shelter where he was waiting at New Hampshire Avenue and Merwood in Takoma Park. After the bus struck the shelter shortly before 11:30 a.m., parts of the structure fell on him, according to Takoma Park Police.
At many transportation hubs, the predictions were more dire than the reality.
While buses were running behind schedule, Metro trains maintained their regular Saturday schedule, said metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein. Amtrak trains also experienced few delays.
Reagan National Airport closed its runway three times for snow removal. But Reagan, Dulles and Baltimore-Washington International airports all remained opened. They even received diverted flights from Philadelphia, New York and Newark, said Tom Sullivan, spokesman for the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority.
The snow that blanketed the region was part of a massive storm caused by a particularly potent form of a phenomenon meteorologists call an Alberta Clipper.
It originated in Canada, gathering strength over the province of Alberta before it dove southeast. Snow fell from Minnesota and Illinois eastward. After passing over the mid-Atlantic, it headed north again.
Temperatures hovered in the 20s through the day.
In the District, homeless people were allowed to remain inside shelters, said Chapman Todd, regional director for Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington, which runs several hypothermia shelters.
Across the region, scores of events were cancelled.
Montgomery County was one of the few jurisdictions that kept its public buildings open Saturday morning, deciding to cancel events and close after 1 p.m. A tsunami charity event, a high school concert, several athletic tournaments and several parties ringing in the lunar new year had to be nixxed, said Ginny Gong, director of the county's office of community use of public buildings.
Many who dared to step out yesterday had little choice.
"My wife owns a bakery and she has to deliver a wedding cake today," said David Goldman, 43, as he bought windshield washer fluid at an Exxon gas station in Gaithersburg.
Along Route 355 in Rockville, many stores were closed; normally crowded streets were all but empty. At the Wintergreen Plaza, only a video store was busy with customers stocking up on shut-in entertainment.
Others had to adopt a more stoic attitude.
By noon at Baltimore Washington International Airport, cancellations began appearing up on the electronic departure boards.
A stranded high school marching band from Nevada turned the ticketing area near American Airlines into an encampment. The 134-member McQueen High School band from Reno, and their 55 adult chaperones, had traveled to Washington to perform in the inaugural parade. They had booked flights on three separate carriers. But United, American and Frontier had all cancelled.
Amanda Tipton, a 15-year-old flute player, said she was resigned to the fact her trip home could take days.
"It was so worth it," walking down Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House, she said while sprawled on the airport's carpeted floor.
Elsewhere, life went on. Parents braved the slippery roads to bring children to the Tollefson stroke-and-instruction clinic, which holds its sessions at the pool at the Georgetown Preparatory School campus. Fourteen swimmers showed up, instead of the 75 who usually come, said John Tollefson, 62, who runs the program.
"We came because we could sled and swim," said Jeanne Mandelblatt, 53, of Garrett Park, who accompanied her son, Colin. "Dry your hair really well," she shouted at her son, as he darted into the locker room.
Indeed, many residents and visitors were enchanted by the sight of Washington covered in snow, as if it were a giant snowball.
The snow was everywhere on Saturday -- on the barricades protecting government buildings, on the port-a-potties left over from the week's inauguration festivities. The white streets throughout the District were streaked with brown and beige where cars had unofficially converted three-lane roadways to two lanes, avoiding the heaps of snow piled up along the sides. Icy windshields peeked out from cars carrying several inches of snow on their hoods, their roofs, sometimes enough on the rear bumpers to obstruct their rear lights.
Saturday was the first time Jenny Chan, 32, had ever seen snow. "It's very beautiful," said the Singapore native, who is studying international relations at Johns Hopkins. "But it's much colder than it looks!"
