Plowed in or dug out: Where do we put it all?

Road crews, public officials, and millions of residents are confronting an overwhelming question: Just what do you do with a season's worth of snow that falls all at once?

Despite an armada of plow trucks, many of Philadelphia's sun-deprived streets, as well as secondary roads in areas west of the city hammered by 30 inches of snow, remained either snow-clogged or marginally passable Monday. Even so-called cleared streets were reduced to narrow channels squeezed through phalanxes of plow walls.

Schools will be closed again Tuesday, and transportation and government officials are pleading for patience as they contend with a historic, spectacular, and disruptive snowpack.

SEPTA canceled more than 20 trains on Regional Rail on Monday night because of manpower shortages. It also advised commuters that station parking would be limited, as lots all over the region have become valleys among the snow mounds.

About 1,800 miles of Philadelphia streets had been plowed by midafternoon Monday, officials said. They hoped to have all roads, other than alleys and dead-end streets, cleared by the end of Wednesday.

Among the heftier snow totals were the 30 inches measured in Malvern and Norristown. "Since there's a huge amount of snow, no one knows where to put it," said Norristown Council President Sonya D. Sanders.

Oscar Ollia, 40, summed up the state of his Norristown neighborhood in two words:

"It's ugly."

Snow was blamed for a roof collapse on the tropical-bird exhibit at the Elmwood Park Zoo in Norristown. The birds had already been moved to a separate building.

At the Jersey Shore, ripped by near-hurricane-force gusts and record tides that sent foot-deep flood waters through the streets, state officials described the damage as "severe."

And in what might qualify as drizzle in the ocean, meteorologists said there's an outside shot at more snow later in the week.

Meanwhile, they warned that persistent nighttime icing is a near certainty - perhaps for weeks - as meltwater seeps from the snowpack onto driveways, sidewalks, and streets.

"It will probably be a threat each night," said Sarah Johnson, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly.

At least 18 deaths were blamed on the weekend blizzard, which affected 20 percent of the nation's population along and west of the Washington-New York corridor. Among them was a woman, 18 and eight months pregnant, who died Saturday morning, evidently of a heart attack, after shoveling snow at her Pottstown home. The baby also died, police said.

After a 500-car pileup on the Pennsylvania Turnpike that stranded some passengers for more than 24 hours, Gov. Wolf said the semiautonomous Turnpike Commission would evaluate what went wrong and seek to prevent a similar situation in the future.

No one was injured in Downingtown, Chester County, when a roof collapsed at the Calvary Fellowship Church. But the damage was estimated at $1 million.

"There's just this gaping hole in the roof, water from the fire sprinkler system was just flooding down the balcony, it sounded like a waterfall," said Pastor Lee Wiggins.

Downingtown and areas to the west of Philadelphia, all the way out to Harrisburg, were caught in heavier snow bands that generated up to 30 inches of snow and more. The cash-strapped City of Harrisburg was struggling with snow removal, with residents on some streets still waiting for plows to come through.

"I have never seen a snowstorm like this," said Wolf during a visit to a Harrisburg PennDot facility Monday to thank several dozen employees for what he called their "fantastic" response to the storm.

Fortunately, west of the Delaware River the flakes were drier than expected, and high winds kept the snow from piling on tree branches and wires, minimizing power outages.

Toward the Shore, the snow was wetter, and thus weightier, said Johnson. In all, 100,000 power outages were reported in the state, Gov. Christie said.

Accumulations at the Shore were lower, but still hefty - 13.4 inches in Atlantic City, for instance - and they spiked dramatically as one moved north and west.

Philadelphia's official 22.4 inches equaled the average for an entire season and was the fifth-biggest snow on records dating to 1884. Given the precipitation amounts, that's about 800 pounds of snow per sidewalk, and upward of a ton per driveway.

In Malvern, where 30 inches fell, officials were confronting the overwhelming question posed by millions of residents:

So where does one put all this stuff?

Ira Dutter, superintendent of public works, said he didn't have the answer yet. He said City Council will decide whether to transport the snow, which would be expensive, or leave it.

Malvern residents did give crews a gigantic assist, said Alexis Law, an 18-year public-works veteran. With her boss' assent, she sent out letters to the rowhouse residents of East Church Street, asking them to move their cars to lots before the storm, making the streets easier to plow.

"Amazingly, everybody moved all their cars," Law said. "It was phenomenal."

twood@phillynews.com610-313-8210@woodt15

Contributing to this article were staff writers Michaelle Bond, Michael Boren, Jeff Gammage, Caitlin McCabe, Laura McCrystal, Justine McDaniel, Chris Palmer, Julia Terruso, Jack Tomczuk, Sam Wood, and Tia Yang.