'Snowmageddon' Buries Mid-Atlantic

More than 300,000 people from Pennsylvania to Virginia were in the dark Sunday morning, utility companies reported. The blizzard -- referred to as "snowmageddon" by President Obama -- brought down power lines across the region, and snow continued to cause outages.

"Since the heavy, wet snow is still bringing trees down, we are still seeing new outages occur," Allegheny Power said in a statement Sunday. "Damage assessment is ongoing, but overall estimated times for the restoration of service have not been determined."

The utility company provides electricity to customers in Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia. More than 142,000 of its customers had no power; the majority of them, more than 90,000, reside in Pennsylvania, the company said.

Saturday's snow fell from southern Indiana eastward to New York, Washington, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Delaware and the New Jersey coast, snarling traffic.

The snow didn't stop everyone, however. Some had fun with the white stuff, fashioning "people" out of snow or having snowball fights. In Washington's Dupont Circle, about 1,000 people cheerfully flung snowballs.

Obama didn't let the snow keep him from his busy Washington schedule. Faced with the swirling flakes, Obama ditched "the Beast" -- his souped-up Cadillac limousine -- for an armored, four-wheel drive Chevy Suburban capable of getting through the several inches of snow.

Sliding vehicles in Virginia hit six state police troopers; three of the troopers suffered minor injuries, police spokeswoman Corinne Geller said.

About 25.5 inches of snow fell at American University in Washington over two days, inching the city toward the snowfall record. The capital received 28 inches of snow in the "Knickerbocker Storm" of January 1922.

In Philadelphia, a reported 28.5 inches had fallen at the airport by late Saturday afternoon, the National Weather Service said.