NEW YORK, 18 February 2003 — A blizzard shut down much of the mid-Atlantic region on Presidents Day with windblown snow up to 4 feet deep, halting air and some rail travel and causing at least a dozen deaths.

The snow was part of a huge system that had charged in from the Plains and up the Ohio valley during the weekend. It also produced rain, mudslides and floods in the South and Appalachians, and ice that snapped trees and power lines, leaving more than 230,000 customers without electricity.

The heaviest snow was in the high country of the central Appalachians: 49 inches in western Maryland’s Garrett County and 27 in West Virginia’s Berkeley County, the National Weather Service and local officials said. The Seven Springs ski resort area near Champion in western Pennsylvania recorded 40 inches.

Flakes piled up at a rate of up to 4 inches an hour in parts of Maryland. Gov. Robert Ehrlich declared a state of emergency, one of several governors who did so.

"This is looking like the largest storm this year, and it may be one of the top five in our recorded history," said Lora Rakowski of Maryland’s Highway Administration. "You name a place, they’ve got snow -- and a lot of it."

New York City reported blizzard condi-tions yesterday, and many Delaware beach communities had flooding caused by a storm surge and a full-moon high tide.

The major airports at Philadelphia and Washington were closed yesterday except for one runway at Washington Dulles International Airport. New York’s Newark, LaGuardia and Kennedy all stayed open but had widespread flight cancellations. Amtrak suspended service between Washington and Richmond, Virginia, and canceled about 25 percent of its Northeast trains.

Among the many travelers stranded by the storm, few were as far from home as Lynn Anderson of Belfast, Ireland.

"It’s turned into a complete nightmare. I’ve never been stranded by myself before," said Anderson, who arrived in Philadelphia on Sunday hoping to go to Williamsburg, Va., but had to stay overnight in a downtown Philadelphia hotel.

Philadelphia had 17 inches by morning with a forecast of 18 to 25. Eighteen to 22 inches was expected in New York City, where the 11 inches of dense, fine snow already on the sidewalks made walking feel like exer-cising on a Stairmaster.

New York City alone had some 1,500 plows and 350 salt spreaders at work, sanitation department spokesman Keith Mellis said.

"It’s getting bad, and it’s going to stay bad," said Gary Szatkowski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Mount Holly, N.J.

The storm was following a northeasterly track, with the snow heading into northern New England. Snow also continued fall-ing across the Ohio Valley as far west as Indiana.

Wrecked cars lined interstate highways around Louisville, Ky., after heavy rain turned to sleet and ice. More than 60,000 homes and businesses in Kentucky were without electricity as the ice broke power lines and tree limbs.

"You’ll go down a street and you’re lucky if you can get from one end to the other without having to drive around trees," said Pat Dugger, director of environmental and emergency management in Lexington.

In West Virginia, some of the approxi-mately 95,000 residents without electricity were told crews might not be able to restore power until at least Wednesday. More power outages were reported in Ohio, the Carolinas and Virginia.