People take pictures in the falling snow in Time Square in New York city Monday. Hu Haidan / China Daily

"CLEANED US OUT"

As New York sidewalks turned white, last-minute shoppers grabbed supplies. In a Best Market grocery store in Harlem, about two dozen people stood with filled baskets in a line that stretched the length of the store.

"Usually it's not like that on a weekday morning," store manager Dror Dayce said. "Yesterday they cleaned us out."

Sarah Schaefer, a 31-year old professor at Columbia University, waited to buy canned food and bread. "We've seen instances where they told us to be prepared and it wasn't so bad," she said, "and then other instances it was really bad."

In Brooklyn, lines stretched down the street outside the Park Slope Food Coop, a local favorite. At a nearby grocery, bread and water were almost gone by the morning commute.

The biggest snowfall on record in New York City came during the storm of Feb. 11-12, 2006, dropping 26.9 inches (68 cm), according to the city's Office of Emergency Management.

Cities along the heavily populated East Coast had snow plows and trucks on standby to dispense road salt.

"This will be a long-duration cleanup and I urge everyone to plan accordingly," Connecticut's Gov. Malloy told reporters in Hartford, adding that hundreds of thousands of people could lose power. "If you can leave work early or work from home, please do."