Hello from the cnn world hurrica headquarters, im Brooke Baldwin welcoming our viewers in the United States and all around the world. This hour across so much of the east, new england, the snow is coming down. Look at these pictures, more than 300,000 homes and businesses have no power. That is more than half the total across the region. Half a million customers scattered across nine states. More than half a foot and a half of snow already fallen in parts of massachusetts. And it keeps coming down. Well take you live to boston in a moment. Look at this, new york, tough to see even the buildings here. This is the worst of the storm, hitting in these predawn hours. Just a short time ago. We have been telling you here about this fatality. We learned a 74yearold man died after he was hit by a car that apparently lost control on a snowy road in poughkeepsie. And across the state of new york, a state of emergency is in place. Rail service, look at this, no cabs. Rail Service Suspended from manhattan to upstate. Thats just new york. In rhode island, snow has been stacking up. As fast as 3 inches an hour there. Up to 2 feet of snow is predicted along with winds possibly topping 60 Miles Per Hour. As i mentioned, im back in the cnn Weather Center where were watching the snow storm. We and karen mcginnis, producers here watching the storm, making sure they have the most up to date information with you. Were live with you throughout the night with continuous coverage on conditions. We have a crew spanned out to bring you the pictures and stories, including there she is on the far left, Indra Petersons in boston, ali velshi, well, ali is not there, but thats his shot. Ali velshi in cape cod for us. In new york, alison kosik, and gary tuchman on Staten Island. Lets begin in boston. Logan airport measured one wind gust 76 Miles Per Hour. Thats two above hurricane strength. Lets go to meteorologist and selfproclaimed weather geek, Indra Petersons, who has been in the snow for the better part of many hours already. Are you frozen to your core yet . No, because you have no idea how many layers i have on. It would probably take me five minutes to list the amount of layers. Im all good. Better be safe than sorry. I want to show you how much snow we have. Were still seeing about nine inches. Were under the foot mark still. Every time i walk out of the truck and i stand out here, i go, its not that bad. Then a couple seconds later, this huge gust comes by. Were talking 50, 60, 70mileperhour gusts. Logan airport is 2 miles away. Were pretty much standing right here, so picture those ice crystals smacking you in the face. I keep trying to han on to nigh anemometer. It measures the wind, and im like, okay, not a bisg deal, bu im getting pelted in my eye balls with ice. So im trying to get you a strong gust, but its tough out there. Were in the thick of this, talking 1 to 2 inchls of snow per hour, some points, 4 to 6 inches an hour. I want to pan to the right a little bit. You can see right in front of the light, this is heavy snow. Visibility at times has gone down below a quarter of a mile. Well continue to see moderate to heavy snowfall here for the next few hours, even all through tomorrow. The big thing here though, temperatures in the teens. You adin the strong winds were talking ability, the windchill is dropping to negative 1 degrees. Think about that, and now imagine being here without power. That is what so many people are dealing with at this hour. In boston, excuse me, in massachusetts, 350,000 without power right now. 500,000 people without power in the northeast. We mentioned the Plymouth Nuclear plant. They lost power as well. Theyre on generators, but 90 of the area around them is without power as a result. Cold and windy. A long ways to go. Even once the bands kick out of here, we could potentially see some of the record snowfall, bument well be dealing with the wind blowing the snow around. As you point out, the Power Outages, right . So were saying half a million in the region. These are customers. This isnt necessarily people. These are homes. That number, its a huge, huge number when you try to really wrap your arms around it. Im glad its just you and another tv crew and no one else really getting pelted in your eyeballs. Thank you for taking one for the team. Well come back for you for us in boston. Want to keep this moving because i want to take you to new york and talk about travel because the blizzard obviously making travel very difficult for a lot of people. Down right impossible, actually, for others. The new york knicks, for example, Basketball Team, stuck tonight in minneapolis because they obviously couldnt get back into town. The San Antonio Spurs as well. Theyre delaying a trip to new york. Theyre hanging out tonight in detroit, hopefully heading to new york tomorrow. This is what were hearing from their team. So pro sports, pro athletes being affected. The Brooklyn Nets are taking a train instead of a plane back to new york after playing in washington, d. C. So just an example of how many people, the groups of people affected by all of this. Alison, let me go back to you on manhattan, a place, friday night at this time, look, people are always out on the streets, you see cabs. Not so much right now, huh . New york city, right . The city that never sleeps. This is a city that is in the middle of a deep slumber. When was the last time you saw the streets practically empty. Look at the circle, columbus circle, practically empty. A couple cabs, maybe a snow plow if youre lucky, maybe a city bus. Empty. Its like a White Christmas today. Isnt it . A winter wonderland. It is cold, ill tell you that, but its snowing and its a quiet snow. Not much wind going on. So really kind of a calm overhang on this evening in the middle of the night. The snow, though, is continuing to pile up. What i find interesting, though, is i really havent seen many snow plows go by and the city has promised they were on patrol as of 7 00 tonight. Perhaps theyre in the boroughs in the neighborhoods making their way through. One interesting difference to this year, though, different from the blizzard that hit here in 2010, the citys kind of learned about it, learned from its mistakes, they have got kind of, brooke, a gps tracker of where the snow plows are. So you can actually go online and see when a snow plow has been down your street here in manhattan and the four boroughs, which i think is kind of interesting, especially since the city got a lot of heat in 2010 when it was hit with 20 inches of snow, and the city was not out ahead of it. Very different story this time around. Now you can hop online and see precisely where those plows are. And if theyre coming to a neighborhood near you. I remember that in 2010, a lot of very furious new yorkers. Thank you. And i want now to take you to a place that was hit very, very hard by Superstorm Sandy not too long ago. This was end of october. Staten island. Tonight, this blizzard has a lot of esthespeople who are still reeling from that storm very much so on edge, and left feeling unprepared. Scott mcgraph lost the first floor to his home because of sandy. He is rebuilding and hes bracing for what is ahead. Well, everybody has fear, you know. You have seen the gas lines this afternoon. People want to run to the gas station, running out of gas because people were getting their generators full, their cars full because you know what . It was a hard hit. If this tide is high like theyre expecting and the high winds, were in for a long night. Gary tuchman is in Staten Island right now. And gary, at least it appears that the snow isnt falling, hopefully the people can catch a little bit of a break. Well, thats right, brooke. It was pretty much 100 days ago that Hurricane Sandy hit the northeastern United States. And no one was hit worst than the people of Staten Island. Thats why here in Staten Island, there may have been more anxiety about this blizzard than anywhere else. So far here, compared to rhode island, connecticut, massachusetts, not as bad. When i did come here today to this particular street, it was completely green. The streets were blue, the grass was green, and theres been a lot of snow, but its not a ton of snow and there havent been a ton of winds. This is the very same street we did live reports on when the hurricane came here. This street was devastated. For example here, you can still see rubble from one of the hundreds of houses destroyed here in Staten Island. Next door is another house that was heavily damaged. The family that lives there is in the process of rebuilding it. They were hoping to move in this weekend. Not so sure because of the heavy snow. But that gives you an idea of whats going on here. This entire street either damaged or destroyed houses. 5 of the population of new york city lives here in Staten Island. 475,000 people in a city of more than 8 million, yet more than half of the people who died in new york, died in Staten Island. 23 People Killed in Staten Island from Hurricane Sandy. Behind us, this tent has been here now for months. Private citizen decided to build the tent there. People have donated food every day. Homeless people, still about 1400 Homeless People here in Staten Island, come to this tent for meals. Even today when the snow starting coming, people were in there having meals. One thing i want to tell you is we actually had a stormrelated injury among the cnn people here today. Our cnn engineer was going inside his suv. He raised up the suv and there was so much snow, it fell on top of his head. He had six stitches in his head, and albert is back at work, even with six stitches in your head. I was wondering why im looking at you live. I heard about this. So hes working with his six stitches to make sure we get you on tv . Im going to give you a shot of the van where this happened. Okay. Basically, a van that looks like this. What happened to albert is he raised this up and there was so much snow on it, it came down and the corner of it hit him in the head, and he was gushing blood. We took him to the hospital. I give a shoutout to the Staten Island university hospital. Within 15 minutes, hes in the hospital, and out with six stitches in his head. Hes doing okay. Were happy to say. Im so glad to say it, albert, were thinking about you, and thank you for hanging in there and helping us be on tv at 2 00 in the morning. Before i let you go, there was a picture on your twitter page of a Christmas Tree. Tell me about that. Right, let me show it to you, brooke. I can show it to you. Can we see good enough light to see this . Im going to run over there. This Christmas Tree was lying down earlier today. It was blown over by the wind, and some neighborhood residents came pack and put it right back up here. This is a Christmas Tree that has basically been here for, you know, since the beginning of december, and it still stands here today, and people thought it epitomized the spirit of the neighborhood. They wanted to leave the Christmas Tree up on this difficult day for the people of Staten Island and the people of the northeastern United States. How about that . Gary tuchman, thank you for sharing that. Thinking about all those people, obviously, hopefully its not as bad for them, although we have seen for so many people in new england. Thank you, gary. Now lets talk to karen. Chad myers has gone to bed. I dont know, do i say good morning, good evening, to you . It blurs. Were so glad were on the air because its such an important story. We know of the one fatality in pukimsy, new york. A couple people have been trapped on the long island expressway. Tell me whats going on . All right, the storm system came together, and it has already produced not record amounts of snowfall in places that were kind of in that bulls eye, right around boston. Thats where we were looking at perhaps what would be the heaviest amounts that would rival 1978. Thats kind of the benchmark for everything now going forward. Was that 27. 5 . 27. 1, i believe. So you know, you can theres a little wiggle room in there, but a lot of the snow areas across boston that we have seen right now, between 20 and around 25 inches. Now, brooke, it is beginning to taper off just a little bit. As soon as i say that, that doesnt mean you can go outside, have a great time. Thats just not going to happen, but theres a band that moved through that was heavy wave in the last couple hours. That same wave associated with this storm is going to move off the coast, so theyll be on the back side of this, so you might get another kind of heavy burst that comes up within the next hour or so. Define heavy burst . We could see the snowfall rates of maybe 2, possibly 3 inches an hour. Those are significant. 1 or 2 inches, thats important. 2 to 3 inches in a storm like this one is exasperating. It will stymie the roads, as we well know. The highways, the airways, i looked at some fascinating information regarding the boston airport. They have supersnow removers. What is that . Its kind of a high volume snow removal system. They really need to get this transportation going. They dont want to do it willynilly. They want to make sure everything is safe. They get these snow removal machines out there and just blast it time after time after time again. And once they do that, they have to make sure that even at that point, the airplanes have enough friction that they can land safely. So they have a friction tester. So theyll keep trying to remove all of the snowfall in case you have plans to go to the airports that have been shut down. So theyre continuing to do this as the snow progresses. Theyre still removing the snowfall. The wind is blowing around. You can imagine how difficult this is. The visibility is only about a half a mile, but theyre going to see as this begins to taper off, so maybe well start to see some movement with the airlines and the international airports. Shes hoping, a lot of people are hoping, and as we continue to cover this, we want to dip in since we can. This is providence, rhode island. Their local affiliate coverage, wj, ar. Well get back to them, but we want to be able to see some ofthies reporters in the field, as they have many eyes and ears on the ground as well. Karen, thank you. Well come back here in just a moment and well head back out to the beach, to cape cod. Cnns ali velshi, who has been pelted by this hailish snow that has been falling. Well talk about that and a whole lot more. Special coverage of the northeast blizzard on cnn overnight. Stay with me. [ female announcer ] today, jason is here to volunteer to help those in need. When a twinge of back pain surprises him. Morning starts in high spirits, but theres a growing pain in his lower back. As lines grow longer, his pain continues to linger. But after a long day of helping others, he gets some helpful advice. Just two aleve have the strength to keep back pain away all day. Today, jason chose aleve. Just two pills for all day pain relief. Try aleve d for strong, all day long sinus and headache relief. Lookin good, flo feelin good feelin real good [ engine revs ] boat protection people love. Now, thats progressive. Call or click today. Or treat gas with these after you get it. Now thats like sunblock before or sun burn cream later. Oh, somebody out theres saying, now i get it take beano before and therell be no gas. East coast time. Looking at this blizzard. Tracking this punishing winter storm. Ali velshi has been out in this for hours and hours for us from cape cod, the town of dennis port. This is the eastern most point of massachusetts. Ali, we have been talking a lot about the wind. The snow pelting you. What about those flickering lights . Tell me about the power situation on the cape. Theyre back on. And dennis port, but theyre off for many, many hundreds of thousands of customers in massachusetts. Thats going to be the problem as people wake up in a few hours. They might be waking up into cold houses. It is cold. I will say the wind has died down. It does feel like were on the back side of the storm. Its pelting me right now. We have a gust coming through, buthere are moments where i dont even feel it. And frankly, as you can see, we have been talking for a couple hours. I can stand up straight and talk to you, which i wasnt able to do earlier. I was hunched down or doing this. Theres still gusts coming through, but were definitely on the back end. Theres still a lot of precipitation. You can see it, its still those icy pellets, but the truth is its lighter than it was before. Theres less accumulation. The problem now is going to be even if were at the back end of this thing, even if theres just a few more inches of snow to come, that could be the few inches that takes down the branch that takes down the power line that puts more people out of power. Until theres no wind, youre not getting guys in buckets who are repairing that. More people are going to end up without power overnight, and it is cold. Its not all that cold, the actual temperature, but theres enough wind that its making it particularly cold, and theres still a travel ban in effect here in massachusetts, in connecticut, and in rhode island. So you cant get around. So theres, you know, were at the back end. I dont think its going to get substantially worse. But it doesnt mean its not going to get worse. If you have power now, you may lose it. Its best to take precautions. The coast of cape cod, im at the southern side. Im about two thirds of the way east. Go further east and get to chatham. That northeast coast of cape cod was also getting hit hard. We dont have a real sense of how badly cape cod has been hit overall. About quaquaa quarter million p are wintering on cape cod right now. These are fullyear residents. It has been hit hard. It probably accounts for a fair number