Massive snow storm heading South

Snow began piling up in a storm that showed no signs of stopping soon across and towards further South.

Blizzard conditions are expected to get worst. By daybreak, the wind was howling through the casino towers in Atlantic City, blowing the snow sideways as it continued to fall.

Hundreds of Atlanta flights were canceled for Friday as snow began to bear down on the area.

During the day, supermarkets and video stores kept busy, so were liquor stores where people stocked up when they had the chance for Sunday’s Super Bowl parties. By mid-afternoon, a sign at Ace Hardware in Westmont let shoppers know shovels and sleds were sold out.

The entire state was under some kind of winter storm advisory or warning. But the southern Jersey shore was expected to get the worst of it. Usually the hardest hit by snowstorms, Sussex County in the northwest corner of the state might see only 2 to 5 inches of snow.

Delta Air Lines canceled about 800 flights into and out of Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, and AirTran Airways canceled 32 flights ahead of the storm, according to airline representatives.

The new storm was taking a more southerly route than the previous two. Accumulations of up to 5 inches were predicted for parts of southeast Mississippi and southwest and south-central Alabama overnight Thursday into Friday.

Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport had recorded 12.5 inches by Friday morning. It was the greatest 24-hour total in the Dallas/Fort Worth area since 12.1 inches fell January 15, 1964, the National Weather Service said.

Louisiana closed state government offices in 42 parishes for Friday because of the storm.

It so rarely snows in Mobile, Alabama, that the city’s public works department doesn’t bother keeping road salt on hand.

So with 2 to 4 inches of snow expected to fall there, road crews were filling trucks with the sand that’s typically reserved for filling cave-ins and for sandbagging during floods.

“We don’t know what to do,” said John Windley, Mobile’s superintendent of public works. “We just tell everybody to stay home.”

Across a swath of the Southeast that hasn’t seen more than an inch of snow in at least a decade — including parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi — public officials were reacting with a mix of trepidation and helplessness.

Many residents, meanwhile, are expressing disbelief.