Light dusting causes chaos as a massive blizzard looms

WASHINGTON -- The commuter chaos caused by a light dusting of snow in the nation's capital was an ominous prelude to the massive blizzard bearing down on the eastern United States on Thursday.

Less than an inch of snow fell Wednesday night in the District of Columbia, Maryland and northern Virginia, but that was enough for roads to immediately freeze over, causing hundreds of accidents and leaving drivers gridlocked for hours. President Barack Obama wasn't spared -- his motorcade slowly weaved and skidded along icy streets to the White House.

The mayor apologized to the city, saying more trucks should have been sent out to lay salt ahead of the snow -- a mistake she said won't be repeated ahead of the much bigger storm arriving today.

"We are very sorry for (our) inadequate response," said District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, who declared a 15-day state of emergency ahead of the potentially historic blizzard. "We should have been out earlier, with more resources."

The sorry preview raised concerns among people scrambling to prepare for up to 2 feet of heavy wet snow and blizzard conditions across the Mid-Atlantic region. Icy conditions already caused accidents that killed two drivers in North Carolina and one in Tennessee.

A truck with a snowplow killed a pedestrian while it was snowing in Maryland.

"It's going to be dangerous out there," said Tonya Woods, 42, a Metro station manager. She had a much longer-than-usual drive home to suburban Clinton, Maryland, on Wednesday night, and worried today would be much worse.

"I say they should shut things down," she said.

Most major school districts in the region closed Thursday or opened late. Bowser announced the district schools would close pre-emptively today, and city offices would close at noon, hours ahead of the storm. College basketball games, Garth Brooks concerts and other events in the storm's path were canceled. Federal workers were waiting to learn whether they would be told to stay home today.

States of emergency also were declared in North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, where road crews were out in force Thursday.