Travel banned in New York City, downstate New York

All of five of Wildlife Conservation Society’s New York City parks – the Bronx Zoo, New York Aquarium, Central Park Zoo, Prospect Park Zoo and Queens Zoo – will be closed Friday, the society announced.

“I know that New Yorkers, we think we’re tough, we think we can handle anything … but the roads are truly, truly risky”, Cuomo said at a press conference.

De Blasio described the storm as “packing a lot of punch”.

The governor declared a state of emergency Saturday throughout New York City and its suburbs during the storm. Broadway shows were later canceled but many restaurants in Manhattan remained open.

MetroNorth trains and the Long Island Railroad will close, New Jersey Transit trains have already stopped running, and the New York City subway will run on limited service. Many area hotels offered special snow rates for those who were stranded. Christie said parts of southern New Jersey experienced some street flooding, though he expects things will get better in that regard. At the Cape May Harbor, a new record high tide was registered.

Officials in Barnegat issued evacuation orders. Several thousand flights were cancelled because of the storm, while officials in Washington took the unusual step of closing down the city’s rail and bus system from Friday night until Monday morning.

“That’s when I started getting like, ‘How much water are we getting in here?’ And that’s kind of why I started getting into a little panic mode”, Nevins told CBS News.

More than 50 people have been forced from their homes around Atlantic City, New Jersey due to “significant flooding” related to the blizzard moving through the region, said Vince Jones, Atlantic City’s emergency management director. “Stay home, and stay off the streets”. “We need the public to listen”, said Mayor Muriel Bowser.

The logjam of mostly tractor trailers on Interstate 77 was cleared by noon Saturday after road crews plowed the snowy highway surface and a fleet of wreckers pulled out stuck vehicles.