In Pa., scenes from the snowstorm
Pitbull spared after garage collapse
The weight of the snow collapsed a rickety residential garage in the city's Wissinoming section this afternoon, and no one knew for sure if there was anyone trapped. Philadelphia police were considering whether to shoot the angry pit bull that was keeping fire fighters from taking a look.
For a brief time during the chaos, the growling dog roaming behind a cyclone fence kept first-responders at bay.
A cop drew his service weapon, but another officer finally calmed the animal. Firefighters inspected the collapse and found no one inside. - Mike Newall
A perfect day for a run
Richard McGarvey, the owner of Bucks County Running Company, was hell-bent on getting to work today. He blew up an air mattress and slept on the floor of his store last night.
McGarvey lives in Manayunk and commutes to his small storefront on State Street in Doylestown Borough.
"It's a small business with only a few employees," said McGarvey, who gave his staff the day off.
It's one thing to lose sales to snow once a season, he said. But three times?
"It's starting to take a toll," McGarvey said. "When you're trying to make your rent and pay your vendors, by the time the second and third storms come around, it's really starting to make an impact."
At 10 a.m., he wasn't sure if he would close early and cut his losses, or stay open until 7 p.m. and work on paperwork. Last Saturday, after the crippling snow on Friday night, he only had two sales all day. He feared today would become "a goose" day - "a zero on your books," he explained.
"Our goal is not to have any goose eggs," McGarvey said.
Just as he finished explaining the meaning of goose, three serious runners came into the store - one planning to buy shoes.
One was Steve Kendra who said he planned to run six miles around Lake Galena at Peace Valley Park today. Kendra, who works for the Children's Tumor Foundation, who organizes teams that compete in endurance races throughout the year, is training for a marathon next month in Antarctica. Today's storm provided ideal training conditions.
"It's perfect," Kendra said.
The Endurance Team for the foundation helps to raise funds and awareness of the genetic disorder neurofibromatosis, which causes tumors to grow along nerves.
Kendra said 12 runners - including three from this area - will be compete in Antarctica. They could find themselves running in 10 inches of snow - or 10 inches of mud.
"This is an exceptional day," Kendra said. - Jennifer Lin
Doylestown Hospital staff hunkering down
Doylestown Hospital is taking no chances.
The hospital is operating under a "Code Red" and taking extra measures to make sure enough staff is on hand throughout the storm, said spokeswoman Sue Gordon.
About 50 nurses, doctors and technicians spent last night at the hospital and equal numbers are expected to sleep over tonight. The hospital has set up cots in conference rooms and made other rooms available for staff.
Gordon said the hospital's daycare center will be open overnight to accommodate staff with children.
The hospital canceled all elective and outpatient surgeries today and office staff was told to stay home, Gordon said.
The emergency room was "very quiet," which is typical during the thick of a big storm, she said. Injuries come later. - Jennifer Lin
Braving the elements for rosemary
Norman Weiss got the phone call he didn't want.
"Unfi cancelled [its deliveries] for the rest of the week," said Weiss, purchasing manager at Weavers Way, the 2,000-member food co-op in West Mount Airy.
The warehouse, in York, Pa., is the store's major supplier of what Weiss called, "organic and natural" foods. "We're going to run out," Weiss predicted.
But in the office of the co-op, at Greene Street and Carpenter Lane, it wasn't totally bleak.
Grocery manager Chris Switky said the co-op's truck made runs to the Food Distribution Center in South Philadelphia on Monday and yesterday, "loading up on fresh produce."
But the Unfi cancellation, Switky said, "is a first."
Getting to work wasn't a problem for Weiss, who lives in East Mount Airy, or Switky, who lives a block away.
But Rick Spalek, the store's manager, said only eight or nine co-op members out of the usual 16 to 18 were able to get to the store to work. The store depends on its members to do three two-hour shifts a year, and Spalek said, "probably half" showed up.
Still, there were enough to stock the shelves before the 9 a.m. opening.
Hannah Ray, 28, had gone to Weavers Way from her Germantown home in a neighbor's all-wheel drive SUV. She needed flour for the rosemary-flavored rye bread that she would be baking for her family.
Her husband is home from his job as a data analyst in the neuro-psychiatry department at the University of Pennsylvania, her 4-year-old is home from Mifflin Elementary School and so is the couple's infant.
"Everybody has made a committment to stay in their bathrobes and slippers," Ray said. "There's a fire. I'm making white bean chili. We're hunkering down."
Paula Seitchik, 44, a real estate agent, had driven in from Wyndmoor in her all-wheel drive.
"I wanted vitamins," Seitchik said. "I have four letters and I needed stamps and I know I can buy individual stamps" at the cash register.
And she said, "It's hard for me to get through a day without coffee from High Point," the espresso bar and pastry shop across the corner.
- Walter F. Naedele
Even too snowy to drink
All those who braved massive lines yesterday to buy gallons of milk and Eggbeaters would have found their supermarket was a shopper's paradise today - assuming you could get there.
At the Acme on Lancaster Avenue in Wayne, two or three customers at a time wandered around - some emerging from four-wheel drive vehicles, others walking there - during the second wave of the blizzard, around noon.
Cashier Barbara Kelly, one of a handful of employees who made it in to open up the store, said business, while slow, has been steady. But few people were doing major shopping.
Thomas Goetz, a maintenance worker at the nearby Valley Forge Military Academy, raced out of his van to get back to work.
"I have to move all the snow to get ready for the cadets and any visitors," he said.
In one hand he had a few cold cuts in a plastic bag, while in his other - covered in newspaper to protect it from the elements - was his new prized possession, a French baguette.
Another shopper, Wayne resident Ian Fox, woke up in an ironic situation, considering that he's a bartender: He had nothing to drink in his home. He dashed out for a jug of apple cider and some orange juice, and picked up some Bagel Bites, too, just for the heck of it.
He said the bar where he works had given him the day off. It's so snowy that no one was going out to drink. "With the roads this bad, only if people can walk out," he said.
Some folks were doing that. A handful of people walked down the middle of snow-covered Lancaster Avenue near downtown Wayne, a most unusual site.
At the Wayne SEPTA station, trains were running but almost no one was taking them. The station manager - who would identify himself only as Don - was all alone inside the toasty warm station. He said only 20 or so passengers had been there in the roughly six hours that he'd been on the job. - Kathy Boccella
Trains, challah, and java still moving in Elkins Park
In Elkins Park, SEPTA commuter trains and buses were moving this morning – but few people were waiting to board. The train station parking lot, normally full, held four cars.
Elsewhere in the community there were signs of snowbound life.
Roling's Bakery was open, offering delicious challah bread and tasty raisin scones. The Elkins Perk coffee house, a regular stop for morning commuters, was serving hot cups of java. Inside the shop, samba music kept up a warm and rhythmic beat, and the scent of roasted beans offered respite from the storm.
"I have a Subaru four-wheel drive. Otherwise I wouldn't be here," said owner and operator Hong Kim. By mid-morning, only five or six customers had come in – one-tenth the crowd of a typical work day. He didn't mind so much, Kim said. The snow was beautiful, and he'd brought a book to read during slow stretches.
Kim, who made his way to work from his home in Northeast Philadelphia, said he was watching the weather and waiting for the moment when the sleet would turn to snow.
"As soon as the snow comes, I'm closing," he said.
Across the community, snowmen arose in front yards, children paying no mind to soaked mittens as they built their school-snow-day monuments. Their soundtrack was the grind of snow shovels on pavement, and the off-kilter whir of snow chains on the tires of passing cars. At Ogontz Park, where joggers and exercise devotees can be found in almost any weather, all that filled the track was snow.
Some traffic was moving along the main arteries of Montgomery Avenue and Church Road, and the occasional SEPTA bus fought its way up the hill on Harrison Avenue.
At the corner of Montgomery and High School Road, landscaper Ron Eddis stood alone, a solitary figure in a woolen cap and heavy coat, waiting in the falling sleet and snow for a bus to take him to Philadelphia. He was determined to visit friends, no matter the weather.
"It doesn't bother me at all," he said, taking a drag on his cigarette. "If I get down there and I'm stuck, I'm stuck. I have a brother and a friend down there. I got somewhere to stay."
Shortly before noon, an inbound SEPTA train rolled into the Elkins Park station. Most of its seats were empty. And the platform was deserted. A conductor stuck his head out of the door, took a quick look, and waved the engineer forward toward the city. - Jeff Gammage
At 9 a.m., as the snow turned to stinging sleet, the Genuardi's supermarket in the Wynnewood Shopping Center was virtually deserted.
Business was so slack a cashier had time to peruse the celebrity magazines.
In the produce department, normally a cornucopia of fruits and vegetables, many shelves and bins were empty.
No bananas. No onions. No Clementines.
Trucks were having a difficult time making deliveries, an employee said. The store had opened on time – at 6 a.m. – and a manager said she expected it would remain open until regular closing time – 11 p.m.
Outside, a snow removal crew from a contracting firm in Bucks County was plowing the parking lot and clearing sidewalks. One manly man was pushing a salt spreader without gloves. "It doesn't bother me," he said. "My hands were getting sweaty. My gloves are drying out in the truck." - Art Carey
A slow day at the cop shop
At 10:30 a. m., Ridley Township detectives were all "snug as a bug" and looking out their office windows as the township municipal workers shoveled the walks and plowed the parking lots.
"We are sitting in a heated office watching them," Detective Scott Willoughby said. "We are not leaving unless we get major crime."
That would be unlikely, he added, since it is "very quiet" in Ridley, where 30 inches fell during the last snow storm. Today's inclement weather, he said, has also kept most people home.
"We may even have lunch delivered," Willoughby joked. Detectives were thinking of a nice soup.
- Mari A. Schaefer
A 1,000 bagel day as life goes on
In Doylestown Borough, you could tell what were essential services by the lights in the storefronts and early this morning, it was bagels and books.
Patrick Murphy, who's owned the Bagel Barrel on State Street for 16 years, has closed for snow only once and that was for the blizzard of 1996, which left a six-foot-tall snowdrift outside his front door.
"I couldn't get out of my house," Murphy recalled of that historic blizzard.
But nothing got in his way today, not even the foot of snow that covered Doylestown and left the streets empty.
At 9 a.m. this morning, the temperature inside the Bagel Barrel was 85 degrees as rows and rows of bagels browned in an open oven.
About a dozen regulars sat around the store's small tables, reading the newspaper and enjoying their daily dose of bagels and coffee.
Murphy, who lives in 17 miles to the north in Quakertown, left his home at 4 a.m. and opened the store by 4:30 a.m.
After the first batch of bagels was cooked, he dropped off a free bag to the doctors and nurses working in the emergency room at nearby Doylestown Hospital. He also shouted out to the snowplow crews for the borough to come in for free ones.
Everyone in the store knew that the light snow that continued to fall was just Act I of a two-act blizzard.
Murphy expected to close at the usual 2 p.m., just before the storm picked up steam again. But his wife, a teacher in Quakertown, was nervous.
"She's called on my cellphone, asking when are you closing," Murphy said. "But we have a store full of people. We're a staple in Doylestown."
Last in the aftermath of last Saturday's storm, he only sold 300 bagels on Saturday, but he expected today to be a 1,000-bagel day.
The doors swung open, sending a blast of cold air into the hot store.
"The mail person is here!" Murphy shouted. "You're the only place to get food right now," Lynn Scheich said, triumphantly dropping his mail on the countertop.
Scheich, a letter carrier for the Doylestown post office, said all 50 carriers were ready to go at 7:30 a.m. Last Saturday's storm was too much for the post office. The carriers never got out to make their deliveries.
At the Doylestown Bookshop, the doors opened at 9 a.m. and Nathan Halter, an assistant manager, served free hot chocolate to his regulars, coming in to buy out-of-town newspapers.
Halter said many of the store's employees live in Doylestown Borough and can walk to work. During last Saturday's storm, business was "really, really slow." Today, if the second half of the storm whips up as everyone fears, he may have to close early. "We're not getting a lot of customers," Halter said. "But we have our regulars and they expect us to be open." - Jennifer Lin
Tough morning for a new snow sweeper
At 9:30 a.m., David MacNeil, a 53-year-old snow sweeper, was trudging with his cart full of supplies through a slush pond at 19th and Pine Streets. MacNeil's baseball cap was soaked with icy rain as he headed into his fifth hour of work.
"It's best to get out here early," he said, navigating the cart onto the sidewalk, "before all the people get to trampling the snow."
MacNeil woke at 5 a.m., turned on his radio for the weather and looked out his window onto 23d and Federal Streets.
The snow had lightened, so he dressed, taking time with his layers: two pairs of pants, three sweaters, a leather jacket, plastic over his thick socks, boots, a beige jumpsuit, scarf, gloves and Obama cap.
MacNeil's cart was loaded from yesterday with a shovel, a rickety house broom and two bags of rock salt.
MacNeil has an agreement with a Rittenhouse Square realtor - he'd rather not say which - to maintain the walks of six apartment buildings throughout storms.
This is his first year shoveling, he said. He is a house painter by trade.
The last two days have been the hardest, he said. The powdery weekend snow had become packed and heavy. His back ached, he said.
MacNeil enjoys the early-morning hours before others looking for work fill the streets, their shovels dragging behind them.
The storms have been good to his pocket, he said. He's earned almost $500 since the snow began to fall on Friday. He has given some of his earnings to his sister.
"She could use it," he said.
Last night, he came home, warmed his hands on the heater and enjoyed a plate of Chinese take-out.
"It was g-o-o-o-d," he said.
"It's going to be snowing down," he said. "Ain't no use standing in it." - Mike Newall
Intrepid Center City merchants open shop
Around Washington Square this morning, the freezing rain and threat of more snow had shuttered most businesses and kept residents indoors.
But one storefront was open at 9:30 a.m., the coffee shop Tuscany Café on Walnut Street.
Mia Poindexter, a native Tennessean who experienced her first snowstorm this past weekend, traveled from her home in West Philadelphia to open up at 7:30 a.m.
She'd only had a few customers, but was keeping an eye on the weather report on television with co-worker Hannah Flite.
"I'd planned on taking the El, but the bus was running. I was pretty surprised. It was even on time," Poindexter said. "The decision was we're a coffee shop, we will be here and we will have hot coffee."
Around the corner, on Jewelers' Row, a number of stores were open ahead of the Valentine's Day.
"I live in Center City. The drive here wasn't too great, and I'm being positive," said Gil Herskovitz, the manager of Golden Nugget Jewelers on Chestnut Street.
While many streets in Center City were passable Wednesday morning, there were few cars on the road. The conditions were more perilous for pedestrians, who had to navigate deep puddles of slush around street corners.
Willy Franklin, a maintenance worker for a property management company, was out clearing sidewalks on Chestnut Street and expected to be at it through the course of the storm.
"The blowers are useless when it's slushy like this, so we have to shovel" he said. "It's better to hit it every six inches than letting it pile up. But with all this water, it's pretty heavy."
- James Osborne
Snowbound DAs gather at the Bellevue
Criminals hoping to operate under the cover of snow, think again – especially in the vicinity of South Broad Street, where any number of high-level prosecutors would probably welcome the chance, any chance, to get out and about.
The three-day midwinter meeting of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys' Association is going on as scheduled at the Park Hyatt Philadelphia at the Bellevue.
"I'm sitting here listening to (state Supreme Court) Justice (J. Michael) Eakin speak about writing appellate briefs and keeping them relevant," newly elected Bucks County District Attorney David W. Heckler said. "What is completely irrelevant is the four-wheel-drive truck that is sitting in my driveway right now."
Decades ago, Heckler was counsel to the association and used to plan these meetings. Now, the former president judge laments, "I have to get CLE (continuing legal education) again."
Heckler took SEPTA to the gathering yesterday and considered going home last night, but was dissuaded by the forecast. He checked in instead at the Bellevue.
A couple of his assistant prosecutors found lodging elsewhere, Heckler said, "and some others drove down today, and apparently had no problem. Going back may be a challenge for them."
Not that they're missing any action back home. The county courthouse is closed. - Larry King
Neither snow nor sleet. . .
"Very nasty," Bill Bevidas, a 36-year-old postal worker, said about street conditions as he made his rounds off Devonwood Road in Radnor.
"It is bad out there and will get worse," Bevidas said as he headed up an unshoveled walk. Some walkways are already clear, he said, but many residents have not even started clearing their walks.
Bevidas, who started his deliveries about 9:30 a.m. said he plans to keep on going today as long as he can see. If it gets too bad or driving becomes treacherous, he said he would head back to the station. - Mari A. Schaefer
Locked out after a long commute
Donald Dott of Mayfair braved the elements this morning to catch the R5 to Bryn Mawr, where he works as an account processor in Bryn Mawr Trust's Wealth Management Division. On arriving for work at 8:30 a.m., he discovered the office was closed.
So Dott, 57, caught the R5 back to Suburban Station and boarded the Frankford El. He rode the El to the end of the line, at Frankford Avenue and Bridge Street, then walked uphill a block and a half to his home.
"Everything was fine once I got on the train," said Dott, who arrived home at 9:45 a.m.
He and his "lady friend," Barbara, were following the adventures of Lassie on TV and planning to stay inside and watch the snow fall.
"It's coming down pretty darned hard," Dott said. "It looks like maybe tomorrow will be a day off, too."
- Bonnie L. Cook
The snowplower's daughter
This time of year, Alexa DeNicola, 15, is used to hearing friends at school comment about her father's job - plowing the snowy streets of Radnor.
"I get that all the time," she said as she shoveled off her front drive and walk with the help of a friend.
"My job seems easier than his," DeNicola, said as she surveyed her handiwork. "The fact he is doing 45 roads seems crazy."
She expects the next time she will see her father, Rob DeNicola, will be sometime tomorrow. Then he will grab a bite and sleep. - Mari A. Schaefer
Tokens of love trump the weather
A rose is a rose is a rose, right?
Well, actually not. When dipped in liquid gold and painted with red lacquer, a rose becomes a highly prized Valentine that can be mail ordered for $59.95 apiece from Steven Singer's jewelry store at 8th and Walnut streets in Center City.
That is why Ali Volpe, 21, stood bundled up against the cold on the R5 commuter line's Bryn Mawr station platform just after 8 this morning. Volpe and one other commuter awaited the 8:31 a.m. train, which arrived at 8:45.
She was headed in town to work until 9 p.m. answering the phones in a third-floor office above the store. Volpe and nine others are filling non-stop Valentine orders for the roses and other jewelry gifts.
"We never close," Volpe said of this, the store's busy season. "It'll be a long day."
Volpe, a senior psychology major at Villanova University, said she worked 35 hours a week at the jewelry store, always commuting by the R-5 train.
Was she worried that train service might be intermittent - or not running at all - by the time her shift ended this evening? Not a bit. It really didn't matter. She had a Plan B: good, ol' dad!
"My family lives in South Jersey, and my dad will come get me," Volpe said.
- Bonnie L. Cook
This is why he has a bed in his office
Ed Truitt, Delaware County's director of emergency services since 1976, has seen his share of bad storms. That's why he has a sofa bed in his office.
Truitt, who has been on duty since midnight, hopes to catch a few winks before the storm's second wallop.
He said most Delaware Countians have access to public transit and tend to stay off the roads during snowstorms.
"If you don't have to go out, don't," he said. "It's treacherous."
Truitt said he is most worried about power outages when the storm intensifies, especially because the snow is wet and heavy - a consistency conducive to downed lines.
"People do some dumb things when the power goes out, such as filling kerosene heaters inside and bringing grills inside," he said. "I just want people to use common sense and stay safe."
- Kathleen Brady Shea
In Center City, signs of life
SEPTA's Market East Station was largely deserted, except for an entrance on Filbert Street which was filled with homeless people and cigarette smoke.
But the Reading Terminal Market was open, and merchants were filling their display cases with fresh fish, sandwiches and meat even though there were few customers wandering about. - Andrew Maykuth
The loneliness of a stationmaster
Joining the Maytag Man in the loneliness department this morning was the Regional Rail stationmaster.
As the 8:19 a.m. R5 train pulled out of Doylestown's SEPTA station, only five - count 'em, five - tickets had been sold from the window all morning. Some monthly pass riders had also taken the train out of Doylestown, but not many.
"As you can tell from the parking lot, the ridership has been down," said the Doylestown stationmaster, who declined to give her name.
The snow-covered parking lot, normally packed solid by mid-morning, hosted fewer than 10 nonemployee vehicles by 8:30 this morning.
And yet, all of the R5 trains were running on time as a mix of rain, sleet and snow continued to fall upon the region. The 8:19 train was the fifth to depart from Doylestown. It was the first to have arrived today from Philadelphia, and was only three minutes behind schedule. Each of the previous trains had sat overnight at Doylestown, the stationmaster said.
SEPTA has announced that it will run the regional rail trains for as long as possible, but can't guarantee service later in the day. Officials say they plan to announce any shutdowns an hour in advance.
Which creates a problem for commuters: How to get home if SEPTA shuts down abruptly?
"I'm stuck if they do," said Ming Cui, 40, of Doylestown, who takes the R5 to work in Center City every day to her job with Hamburg Sud, an international shipping company. "A lot of the workers commute to the city, so we are hoping they might let us leave a little early."
Her job, she said, is about a 10-minute walk from the Market East station. She said she will be watching SEPTA's Web site for news of any shutdowns.
Her three fellow riders on the morning train had overnight plans in place already.
Michael Smith, 28, of Doylestown, has surgery scheduled tomorrow at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. He and his girlfriend, Kerri Halliwell, 25, plan to stay over at the Holiday Inn tonight.
"It's guaranteed the surgery is going, so I've got to get down there," Smith said.
Francine Christman, 44, admissions director at Phoebe Ministries' long-term care facility in Wyncote, clutched an overnight bag with a change of clothes as she waited for the train.
"I'm hoping to get back on the 4 o'clock train, said Christman, who lives within walking distance of the Doylestown station. "But a lot of people are doing this just in case."
Christman said she normally drives to work, but "my car doesn't do very well in the snow," so she's relying on SEPTA. - Larry King
Florida, here I come
April Synderman, 50, was shoveling snow this morning in front of her house on Old Lancaster Pike in Bryn Mawr this morning and announced her plans for the future.
"I'm moving to Florida for the last half of my life," said Synderman, who, no doubt found today's wet snow heavier than last weekend's easy-to-lift powder.
"I hope this is my last winter here," said Synderman, wearing a red Phillies cap, a heavy coat and boots.
- Bonnie L. Cook