Blizzard slams northeast

A man strolls on a walking path at Liberty State Park, with the Statue of Liberty in the distance, Monday, Jan. 26, 2015, in Jersey City, N.J. The Philadelphia-to-Boston corridor of more than 35 million people began shutting down as a monster storm, that could unload a paralyzing 1 to 3 feet of snow, moved through the northeast. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

By Will Wright

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One would probably think the apocalypse was on its way after looking at UK journalism senior Annie Dunbar’s shopping cart on Monday.

A flashlight, bottled water and, maybe most importantly, cookie dough, were the essential items Dunbar knew she may need while preparing for a blizzard that is expected to drop about two feet of snow on the northeastern U.S., according to a Blizzard Warning issued by the National Weather Service.

Dunbar, a former Kentucky Kernel sports editor and current intern at ESPN in Bristol, Conn, is one of the tens of millions of people preparing for the historic blizzard that had canceled nearly 7,000 flights by Monday night, according to NBC News.

“We don’t get blizzards,” Dunbar said of Lexington. “I’ve never seen three feet of snow, that’s like half my height.”

There are already about six inches of snow on the ground in Bristol, so any new snow will rest on top of that.

Though the roads are generally well-maintained, Dunbar said, Connecticut Governor Dannel P. Malloy issued a travel ban on Connecticut highways starting at 9 p.m. Monday.

“So far they’ve cleaned the roads,” Dunbar said. “They’ve done a really good job.”

But after ESPN told her and her fellow interns to stay home Tuesday, they wanted to prepare for the worst.

“It’s like an apocalypse is coming,” she said. “We’ve been walking outside just seeing if anything has changed.”

Dunbar and her peers do not have Wi-Fi where they stay, and only a few of them have TVs, so they thought making cookies would be a nice way to spend the next day if leaving the home is not an option.

“We just went out and got cookie dough,” she said. “Well, what else were we going to do?”

Many people in New England and the northeast are wondering the same thing, as major airlines warned that almost no flights would take off or land in New York, Boston and Philadelphia. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said wind gusts in the city could surpass 60 mph. Blasio ordered cabs and delivery bicycles to be off the streets by 11 p.m. Monday.

The National Weather Service’s Blizzard Warning to the New York area also called the event a “crippling and potentially historic” snowstorm that will continue through the night and into Tuesday.

Dunbar stayed Monday night with other ESPN interns during her first time waiting through a blizzard of this magnitude.

“It’s definitely a new experience,” she said.