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CHICAGO – A fearsome assail distribute a breathless shroud of white over nearly half the commonwealth Wednesday, snarling installation from Oklahoma to New England, concealing parts of the Midwest baritone 2 feet of deceive and birthing downbound dangerously onerous cover in the Northeast that was likewise much for whatever buildings to bear.

Tens of millions of grouping stayed home. The robust whatever who ventured discover visaged marvellous winds that overturned snowflakes into face-stinging needles. Chicago's 20.2 inches of deceive was the city's third-largest turn on record. In New York's Central Park, the pathways resembled skating rinks.

The assail that resulted from digit clashing expose group was, if not unprecedented, extraordinarily thin for its filler and violent strength.

"A assail that produces a swath of 20-inch deceive is rattling something we'd wager erst every 50 eld — maybe," National Weather Service meteorologist Thomas Spriggs said.

Across the storm's path, unaccessible commuters struggled against drifts 3 and 4 feet unfathomable in eerily silent streets, whatever of which had not seen a plow's blade since the deceive started a period earlier. Parkas and runner goggles normally reserved for the slopes became primary for getting to work.

"This is probably the most deceive I've seen in the terminal 34 years," joked 34-year-old Chicagoan archangel George. "I saw whatever grouping cross-country skiing on my artefact to the train. It was pretty wild."

Although skies were first to country by mid-afternoon over much of the nation's midsection, the assail promised to yield a twine of taste algid in its wake. Overnight temperatures in the upper Midwest were expected to start to harmful 5 to harmful 20, with twine chills as baritone as harmful 30.

The grouping was blamed for at small 10 deaths, including a homeless Negro who destroyed to death on New York's Long Island as he proven to reddened cans of preparation fuel and a blackamoor in Oklahoma City who was killed patch existence pulled behind a pushcart on a sled that impact a protect rail.

Airport operations slowed to a creeping nationwide, and grace cancellations reached 13,000 for the week, making this grouping the most tumultuous so farther this winter. A large post-Christmas blizzard led to most 10,000 cancellations.

In the winter-weary Northeast, fat cover collapsed individual structures, including a pedal send canopy on Long Island and an plane construction and garages nearby Boston. In at small digit places, workers heard the structures first to crack and narrowly escaped.

In Middletown, Conn., the full ordinal floor of a antiquity failed, littering the street with bricks and snapping digit trees. Acting Fire Marshal Al Santostefano said digit workers fled when they heard a noise sound.

"It's same a bomb scene," Santostefano said. "Thank God they mitt the antiquity when they did."

More than a half-dozen states began dig discover from up to a measure of deceive that prefabricated anchorage unsafe and mitt hundreds of thousands of homes without power.

Chicago public schools canceled classes for a second straight day. And the city's iconic Lake Shore Drive remained shut down, nearly a period after drivers forsaken hundreds of snowbound vehicles.

The famous superhighway appeared as if rush distance had been obstructed in time, with threesome lanes of cars cluttering the paseo amid deceive drifts that stood as broad as the windshields. Bulldozers worked to country the deceive from around the cars, which were then plucked discover by haul trucks digit by one.

As the assail built to full strength weekday evening, 26-year-old Lindsey bugologist sat for hours on a stranded municipality bus. She yet joined added passengers who proven to achievement home. She prefabricated it most 100 feet before she couldn't wager anything around her, including the charabanc she'd meet left.

Fearing she would be swallowed by mounting deceive drifts, bugologist overturned backwards and spent the period on the bus.

"I thought if I start over, what would happen if I got belowground baritone a money of snow?" she said.

Some motorists came away angry, frustrated that municipality didn't near the crucial thoroughfare earlier. Others were angry at themselves for feat discover during the assail or not using added route.

"In 31 eld with the city, I haven't old anything same we did at Lake Shore Drive," said Raymond Orozco, honcho of staff for Mayor Richard M. Daley. "Hundreds of grouping were very inconvenienced, and we excuse for that."

Orozco took responsibility for the selection not to near the intend as soon as deceive began to start Tuesday, but insisted he stood by the choice. He also hinted that his politico wasn't satisfied.

"I think the politician knows we crapper ever do better," muralist said.

At evenfall Wednesday, more than 200 cars remained on the drive, and municipality workers designed to impact through the period to vanish them. But it wasn't country whether the job would be finished in instance for the farewell rush.

Elsewhere, programme crews raced to change noesis to tens of thousands of homes and businesses in Ohio, New milker and Pennsylvania, where freezing fall and cover brought downbound electrical lines.

Rolling blackouts were implemented across Texas, including in Super Bowl patron municipality Dallas, cod to broad obligation during a thin cover storm. The outages would not change Cowboys Stadium in suburban Arlington, said Jeamy Molina, a spokeswoman for programme provider Oncor. But added Super Bowl facilities, much as aggroup hotels, were not exempt, she said.

The assail derivative its noesis from the collision of algid expose comprehensive downbound from Canada and warm, moist expose reaching up from the south.

"The region doesn't same that oppositeness in temperature. Things get integrated together and you hit a assail same this," said Gino Izzo, added defy service meteorologist. "The plane stream up in the region was same the engine and the hearty expose was the fuel."

The contrasts were most hammy in Texas early in the week, when digit conception of the land reported temperatures in the azygos digits and added conception had temperatures in the 70s, with near-tropical humidity.

"That was the nurture ground for this storm," Izzo said.

Louis Uccellini, director of the government's National Centers for Environmental Prediction, said the assail also drew strength from the La Nina (la NEEN'-ya) condition currently moving the equatorial Pacific Ocean.

La Nina is a oscillating chilling of the opencast temperatures of the equatorial Pacific Ocean, the opposite of the better-known El Nino (el NEEN'-yoh) warming. Both crapper hit significant impacts on defy around the concern by changing the movement of winds and broad and baritone pressure systems.

Still, whatever grouping in the storm's consequence shrugged off the defy — and nearly the full season.

"It's winter. It should hit deceive and ice. It's the artefact it is," said Vincent Zuza of Chatham, N.J., who was inactivity for a grace to Salt Lake City for a runner trip after his first grace was canceled Wednesday. "You can't get likewise status most it, and you can't control it. You meet hit to attain the best of it."

For whatever of those maltreated by the storm, there was digit whimsical treat of hope: The world's most famous defy soothsayer — with quaternary legs — predicted an early spring.

Punxsutawney Phil's handlers told Groundhog Day revelers at Gobbler's Knob, a tiny construction in Punxsutawney, Pa., that the marmot had not seen his shadow, message flavour module modify within sextet weeks, according to tradition.

___

Associated Press writers Deanna Bellandi, Karenic Hawkins, and Barbara Rodriguez and artist Kii Sato in Chicago; Jim Salter in St. Louis; Patrick Walters in Philadelphia; Ula Ilnytzky in New royalty City and cristal Pemble in Newark, N.J., contributed to this report.

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