For the Holidays Christmas Closings Here's a guide to holiday schedules in the District, Maryland and Virginia. Airport Information Here's a Web guide to what's happening at Reagan National, Dulles and BWI airports. Amtrak Amtrak's Web site offers information about train arrivals and schedules.

By Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 25, 1998; Page A1

The snow and ice that blew across the country from Texas to New England blasted apart Christmas travel plans for thousands of area residents yesterday, knocked out electricity throughout central Virginia and made roads and parking lots in the region difficult and dangerous.

Although the brief storm left only a thin layer of ice on the ground, it ripped holes through carefully crafted holiday plans, stranding people in airports, slowing them on roads and keeping them guessing in train stations.

In central Virginia, hundreds of thousands spent Christmas Eve in dark, cold homes surrounded by downed power lines in one of the biggest electric outages in recent history. Officials said that conditions today may be much the same because it was too icy yesterday for many crews to begin repairs.

As temperatures dropped into the teens last night, the National Weather Service predicted that black ice – nearly impossible to see since it makes the pavement appear to be merely wet – would cover some roads this morning.

The wintry blast is part of the country's first major storm this season. Temperatures have plummeted from the Plains to California and from the South to New England.

While major roadways around Washington were mostly clear by midday yesterday and rail travelers faced few delays, the region's three airports were scenes of drama and desperation. The nationwide storm scuttled flight schedules, testing the hardiest holiday cheer and causing grown men and women to cry.

Visions of sugarplums and toasts by the fire were erased by bulletins about delays and cancellations. For many, home never seemed so far away.

At Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Jodi Grossman couldn't take any more. "This is it. This is my last attempt. We may just have to go home and skip the whole vacation. We can't spend Christmas at the airport!" said Grossman, 34, of Owings Mills, Md., as she waited in the long, slow line at USAir's Special Services desk, in hopes of a new seat assignment.

Grossman and her family – husband David, 34, and children Adam, 5, and Daniel, 3 – were trying to get to Boca Raton, Fla., to spend the holiday with the children's grandmother, but their 8:40 a.m. flight was delayed three hours and they would have missed the connecting flight. So they secured seats on a 1:45 p.m. standby flight but that left early and they missed it. Every flight to Florida and other points south was booked, booked, booked.

"Mom, are we going to get on the plane?" Adam asked, tugging at her leg. "Mommy's trying, I'm trying," she told him, whispering to the adults, "How can I tell him he might not get to see his Bubbie in Boca?"

Nearby, a woman holding a baby was sobbing at a ticket desk, saying, "Please help me, please help me."

At Reagan National Airport, Danette Day's 3-year-old daughter, Meagan, burst into tears when USAir canceled their flight to New Orleans, where relatives waited.

Carrie Levine, a Georgetown University senior, understood. She had already boarded a plane for Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Wednesday evening when the captain announced the flight had been canceled. "I flipped out," said Levine, who had nowhere to sleep because her Georgetown dormitory was closed for the holidays. Her mother, waiting for her in Florida, contacted an old friend in Alexandria and hastily arranged for Levine to spend the night there. She was back at the USAir ticket counter yesterday, hoping for a new seat on another flight.

At Dulles International Airport, the whimsical background music pulsing through Terminal B was meant to instill a sense of serenity. "And since there's no place to go, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow." But because it was 4 a.m. on Christmas Eve and the 200 or so passengers on Delta Flight 901 had been waiting seven hours to get out of Washington, it felt like a cruel joke.

Metro spokeswoman Cheryl Johnson said Metrorail ran without trouble yesterday and nearly all buses were operating close to schedule. Although some buses struggled to navigate city side streets that had not yet been salted or cleared Wednesday night, Johnson said routes were back to normal by yesterday morning.

Some Amtrak service in the Northeast corridor was delayed, but the railroad canceled service all day between Richmond and Newport News because of downed trees and power lines and a possible track malfunction, spokeswoman Maria Hess said. Those cancelations affected two trains, including Train No. 95, which originates at Union Station.

For the D.C. Department of Public Works, the brief storm offered the first chance to prove it can clear snow since its dismal performance in the January 1996 blizzard.

This time, the city dispatched about 100 trucks throughout the District. Public Works spokeswoman Linda Grant called the effort a success. But several skeptics said the small amount of snow was not much of a test.

"They did a pretty decent job on the main streets," said Jacqueline M. Harris, who drove through Northeast early yesterday. "But the side streets were still pretty icy this morning. We will have to wait and see what happens when the heavy stuff falls."

In Maryland, the State Highway Administration seized on the storm as an opportunity to test a new weapon against the ice. Highway crews tried "Ice Ban Magic," a brown, molasses-like goo that is mixed with salt and used to melt ice on roads.

The substance, made from magnesium chloride and grain byproducts, is supposed to be less harmful to the environment than salt and three times as effective in melting ice, said Valerie Burnette Edgar, spokeswoman for the highway administration. "It works more quickly and lasts longer than salt," she said.

In Virginia, highway officials had more-serious problems. Five people died in storm-related traffic accidents in east-central Virginia. Interstate 64, the main highway in the Hampton Roads area, was closed for two hours in Newport News because of downed power lines on the road, said Virginia State Police Sgt. R.S. Pillow.

In the corridor stretching from the Richmond-Petersburg area to Newport News and the Northern Neck, the snow and ice knocked out electricity to thousands of homes and businesses. On a night when families normally would be gathering around lighted Christmas trees, more than 300,000 Virginia Power customers were without electricity.

Virginia Power spokesman Jim Norvelle called it one of the most serious central power outages in recent history. "It's going to be a long, cold night," Norvelle said.

Both Richmond International Airport and the Newport News airport were shut down for several hours because of the power loss yesterday, stranding thousands, said Anne Steele, spokeswoman for the Richmond airport. Only four of 150 scheduled passenger flights went through, mostly because the loss of power affected the ability to de-ice airplanes, Steele said.

The roads were just as treacherous. In Fairfax County, a tanker truck attempting to drive up an icy hill in Centreville early yesterday slid off the road into a ditch and overturned, requiring a hazardous-materials clean-up and causing an 11-hour shutdown of the road, officials reported.

But ice did not deter shoppers, who flocked to city shops and suburban malls to pick up last-minute presents for others and winter gear for themselves.

At Hecht's in downtown Washington, a crowd converged near the front of the store, where Rodney Foust, 28, was doing a brisk business in all things warm and waterproof. "Lots of gloves and caps," he said.

At Tysons Corner Center, some shoppers expressed surprise that more people weren't doing their last-minute shopping.

Montgomery Mall off Democracy Boulevard was packed with even more holiday procrastinators than usual after the ice storm forced many to cancel shopping plans the previous night. Several staff people who usually worked inside the mall were deployed to parking lots to help direct traffic.

Supermarkets, which count the day before Christmas as one of their busiest of the year, got an extra boost from storm-fearing customers who tossed canned goods into their carts along with holiday hams.

"Our stores are extremely busy," said Barry Scher, spokesman for Giant Food Inc., the Landover-based supermarket chain.

For those hoping for that Washington rarity – a white Christmas – the brief snow was a frustrating tease. "Look at how patchy the snow is," said Mohamad A. Choudhra, a D.C. cabdriver from Pakistan. "You can't really say this is a white Christmas. In fact, it's going to get dirty and be very ugly unless there's more snow."

Staff writers Eric Lipton, Josh White, Sari Horwitz, Fern Shen, Scott Wilson, Alan Sipress, Sylvia Moreno, Peter Pae and Susan Saulny contributed to this report.