Travel Advisory in Effect as NYC Prepares for Snowstorm

City and state officials said the ban applies to all motor travel except for government or medical emergency vehicles.

“We never want to have to arrest someone in this situation, but we will arrest them if needed”, de Blasio said.

“This is very similar to the amount of water we had for Sandy”, the mayor said, referring to the 2012 superstorm that battered New Jersey’s shoreline. As the city prepared for the first major significant snowfall of the winter, de Blasio on Friday issued a “winter weather emergency” for the city. Virginia police responded to 989 traffic crashes and 793 disabled vehicles on Friday according to WUSA. The MTA suspended all bus service at noon.

The weekend whiteout has been blamed for at least nine fatalities, as states of emergency have been declared in 11 states and Washington D.C. weather officials say up to 85 million people are now in the storm’s path.

The heaviest snow was continuing to fall across Maryland and DE on Saturday morning, but will shift toward southern New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island and southeast MA by the afternoon and evening, the National Weather Service said.

With blizzard conditions in the forecast, the mayor warned New Yorkers to stay home when what could be a vicious snowstorm hits the city Saturday.

The city has set aside $1 billion in the general reserve, $500 million in capital reserves and another 3.4 billion in the trust for retiree health benefits.

“I would hope that New Jersey Transit would be up and ready to go in time for people to make their commute Monday morning”, Gov. Chris Christie said. The mayor said he hopes state electeds will put aside other political disagreements for the sake of safer streets.

Council Minority Leader Steven Matteo (R-Mid-Island) and Councilman Joseph Borelli (R-South Shore) will fight for more road fix funding, various parks and traffic projects, a FDNY squad company on Staten Island and a study on light rail for the West Shore. As snow fell at a rate of two to three inches an hour, temperatures hovered below freezing and winds gusted up to 80 mph in most of the region.

Flooding is also possible along the mid-Atlantic coast, experts said.

The storm pummeled much of the east coast, forcing tens of millions of residents from northern Georgia to New Jersey to shutter themselves inside to wait out the mammoth blizzard. “We’ve been through this before, the flooding is the worst, it’s the worst danger and it does the most damage”. He said there were some 17,000 power outages across the state as of Saturday morning.