'Kind of awful': Another snowstorm clobbers the Northeast

NEW YORK (AP) - For the second time in less than a week, a storm rolled into the Northeast with wet, heavy snow Wednesday, grounding flights, closing schools and bringing another round of power outages to a corner of the country still recovering from the previous blast of winter.

The nor'easter knocked out electricity to hundreds of thousands of customers and produced "thundersnow" as it made its way up the coast, with flashes of lightning and booming thunder from the Philadelphia area to New York City. A New Jersey middle school teacher was struck by lightning but survived.

Officials urged people to stay off the roads.

"It's kind of awful," said New York University student Alessa Raiford, who put two layers of clothing on a pug named Jengo before taking him for a walk in slushy, sloppy Manhattan, where rain gave way to wet snow in the afternoon. "I'd rather that it be full-on snowing than rain and slush. It just makes it difficult."

The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning into Thursday morning from the Philadelphia area through most of New England.

The storm unloaded snow at a rate of 2 or 3 inches an hour, with some places in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut getting well over a foot by Wednesday night. Butler, New Jersey, got 22 inches, Sloatsburg, New York, 23 inches and Newtown, Connecticut, 14 inches.

Major cities along the Interstate 95 corridor saw much less. Philadelphia International Airport recorded about 6 inches and New York City received a little over 2.

More than 2,600 flights across the region - about 1,900 in the New York metro area alone - were canceled.

It wasn't much better on the ground, with Pennsylvania and New York banning big rigs from some major highways and transit agencies reducing or canceling service on trains and buses.

The storm wasn't predicted to be as severe as the nor'easter that toppled trees, inundated coastal communities and caused more than 2 million power outages from Virginia to Maine last Friday.

But it still proved to be a headache for the tens of thousands of customers still in the dark from the earlier storm - and for the crews trying to restore power to them.

In New Jersey, the state's major utilities reported more than 300,000 customers without power by Wednesday night, with some left over from last week. PECO, Pennsylvania's largest electric utility, reported more than 100,000 homes and businesses without power.

Wind gusts up to 60 mph were forecast on Cape Cod, 45 mph at the Jersey shore and 30 mph around suburban Philadelphia.

The wind knocked gobs of slush and snow off buildings and trees in Philadelphia and New York, forcing pedestrians to watch out. Across the region, power lines and tree branches sagged precariously under the weight of the wet show. Suburban streets were littered with downed trees and branches.

"I don't think I'm ready for this to happen again," Caprice Dantzler said as she walked through Philadelphia's Rittenhouse Square. She said many trees that crashed into cars and homes and blocked streets during the last storm had yet to be removed.

A few hardy tourists waded through puddles and slush to visit the World Trade Center memorial, where Juan Escobar, visiting from Cali, Colombia, with his wife, Daniela, snapped a selfie in front of one of the reflecting pools. Escobar said it was the second time in his life he had seen snow.

"It's awesome!" he said. "We are cold as hell, but we are happy."

Ten people were taken to hospitals with symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning after running a generator inside a home in North White Plains, New York, police said. All were expected to survive.

A teacher was struck by lightning while holding an umbrella on bus duty outside a school in Manchester Township, New Jersey, police said. The woman felt a tingling sensation but didn't lose consciousness. She was taken to a hospital with minor injuries.

Members of the Northeastern University women's basketball team pushed their bus back on course after it was stuck in the snow outside a practice facility in Philadelphia. The Huskies were in the city to compete in the 2018 CAA Women's Basketball Tournament. The team posted a video of the feat on its Twitter account.

Amtrak suspended service between New York City and Boston until at least 10 a.m. Thursday. New York City's Metro-North commuter railroad suspended service on lines connecting the city to its northern suburbs and Connecticut because of downed trees, and the Long Island Rail Road also was experiencing delays. School districts and government offices from Delaware northward closed, and the governors of New Jersey and Pennsylvania declared states of emergency.

Officials warned homeowners of the danger of heart attacks from shoveling heavy snow.

In New Jersey, a volunteer firefighter used the snow to save a house from major fire damage.

Stillwater firefighter Joe McAllister didn't have any firefighting equipment when he got to the house, so he improvised, grabbing a shovel and tossing snow onto the fire, according to nj.com. McAllister knocked down most of the flames by the time other firefighters arrived.

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Porter reported from Newark, New Jersey. Associated Press writers Michael Catalini in Morrisville, Pennsylvania; Michael Sisak and Rod Hicks in Philadelphia; Wayne Parry in Atlantic City, New Jersey; and Bruce Shipkowski, in Toms River, New Jersey, contributed.