NEW YORK CITY (AP) -- Airlines canceled hundreds of flights, students reveled in a rare snow day and the United Nations shut down on Wednesday, but intrepid commuters headed to their jobs despite a blizzard warning.
The intensity of the snow and wind picked up after dawn, and accumulations were forecast to be 10 to 15 inches.
In Manhattan, Sylvia Mendez didn't think things looked too bad as she headed to her Web design job. "I expected more snow," she said, but she conceded: "We'll see what happens."
Harry Tucker, 44, a bond trader from Bronxville waiting for a commuter train in Pelham, said, "I work on commission. If I don't work I don't get paid. I could work from my home computer but at work I'm on a trading desk and there's a lot more information from my colleagues."
With an inch or two of snow on the ground in midtown Manhattan, sanitation workers were busy plowing.
Debra Barr, piloting the sidewalk in her motorized wheelchair with her shepherd mix, Brandy, on a leash, said she had a hard time crossing the street when the plowed snow got piled high at the curb. "They don't think about people with disabilities," she said.
Zaki Mohaed, a pushcart vendor, arrived at his regular spot on West 33rd Street at 1:30 a.m., two hours earlier than usual, to beat the traffic from Queens.
He might have considered staying home. But "I didn't cancel my (pastry) order; everything is fresh."
Driving was tricky even before the snow was deep enough to plow. Yagnesh Patel, manager of a Staten Island 7-Eleven, said he had a scary, slippery drive in.
"It's going to be a tough day ahead," he said.
"It's treacherous out there," said taxi driver Xavier Anderson of Brentwood, on Long Island. "We were sliding everywhere. I think everybody's staying home."
Eileen Mosca of Farmingdale stopped at a bagel store for breakfast and then planned to drive her daughter to her job at a Melville horse farm.
"It's slippery. The roads aren't all that great," she said. "I tried shoveling my walk and put down salt, but two minutes later it's covered over."
A lot of people stayed home. The Long Island Rail Road parking lot in Farmingdale was only about half-full by the end of the morning rush hour.
The weather apparently was not fit for beasts, either. The Bronx Zoo and other Wildlife Conservation Society parks were closed.
Long Island Power Authority reported virtually no outages, but officials were preparing for the possibility of downed wires later in the day, when heavy winds were expected.
Steve Coleman, spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said air traffic was "very minimal." He said most airlines already had canceled all flights.
In addition, high winds were forcing 20 mph speed limits on some bridges, he said.
To the north, schools were closed in most parts of the Hudson Valley. Smaller amounts of snow were expected well upstate, with just 4 inches forecast for Buffalo.
All branches of the New York Public Library also were closed.
(Copyright ©2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
