Ice, snow snarl Northeast traffic Squalls cause hundreds of accidents from N.J. to Maine; 2 killed

Fast-moving snow squalls made highways hazardous and caused hundreds of traffic accidents Tuesday across wide areas of the Northeast, and two people were killed. Some schools were closed.

Accumulations were light, but the blowing snow created blizzardlike conditions that cut visibility and made pavement slippery across parts of Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire.

Some New Jersey highways were glazed with a mixture of snow and freezing rain.

“Everybody’s going to be late for work this morning,” New Hampshire State Trooper Tom Forsley said.

Maine State Police Lt. Randy Nichols said there were a dozen or so minor accidents, including a rollover, in York County between 4:30 and 8 a.m. There were no injuries.

He said the accidents were caused by people driving too fast, following too closely and not paying attention.

Several major Connecticut highways were closed and traffic was snarled on nearly every major highway in Massachusetts.

Traffic backups as long as 20 miles clogged major arteries around Trenton, N.J. Wrecks closed several Pennsylvania highways.

“If you wanted to go somewhere, it wasn’t happening. I know. I tried. You just had to sit there,” said New Jersey State Police Lt. Al Della Fave.

In central New York, several school districts were closed west of Syracuse, where the National Weather Service said 4 to 8 inches of snow fell.

A tractor-trailer rig careened across a median south of Albany, N.Y., killing a motorist. State police said the truck driver told them slippery pavement contributed to the wreck.

Another motorist was killed near Rochester in western New York, state police said.

Blowing snow may have caused a chain-reaction wreck involving more than a half-dozen tractor-trailers and several cars on Interstate 80 in central Pennsylvania, state police said. Several people required hospital treatment.