The Big Apple got walloped by Superstorm Nemo overnight, prompting thousands of canceled airline flights, suspended train and bus service and gasoline shortages.
Gov. Cuomo declared a state of emergency, giving the city and other New York municipalities the flexibility to deal with what threatened to be a storm of historic magnitude.
Workers fled their offices early to hunker down for the night — as Mayor Bloomberg warned drivers to keep off the roads.
“Stay off the city streets,” Bloomberg advised at a news conference yesterday afternoon. “Stay out of your cars.
ZUMAPRESS.com
WE SEE YOUR KNEES! This hot-blooded gal takes a “short” cut, exposing her legs to the elements in Midtown while her prudent pals stay a bit warmer in the superstorm.
“We’ve got to prepare for the worst case. We’re ready for anything.”
Among yesterday’s major developments:
* More than 1,700 flights were canceled in and out of La Guardia, JFK and Newark airports as wind gusts were expected to hit 50 mph. Travelers are urged to call their airlines today before heading out to airports for flights.
* Forecasters predicted that some coastal areas damaged three months ago by Hurricane Sandy would suffer flooding this morning from a storm surge of one or two feet above normal tides.
* New York City deployed 1,700 snowplows, 450 salt spreaders and 65 front-end loaders for a cleanup mission that will continue through the weekend.
And some 250,000 tons of salt were ready to be spread.
* Gov. Cuomo shut down Metro-North Railroad lines indefinitely as of 10 p.m. last night, with Grand Central Terminal closing at about midnight. The Long Island Rail Road suspended service on parts of the Montauk branch, and NJ Transit officials said they were monitoring snow accumulations to decide whether to suspend service.
* Worried about a repeat of gas shortages seen in Sandy’s aftermath, motorists fueled up at stations around the region, with some running out of gas and most reporting long lines.
A key tanker-delivery fill-up terminal on Long Island near the Queens border ran out of gas yesterday, and an estimated 10 percent of the service stations on the Island also came up empty.
* Con Edison promised to have 500 workers performing damage assessment to power lines, and 250 outside contractors and other personnel lined up to help with power restoration. The utility urged people to steer clear of downed wires. The Con Ed Web site showed only a small number of scattered outages last night.
* The NYPD added personnel to its Highway Division and Emergency Service Unit in neighborhoods that had already been socked by Sandy.
The FDNY also added an extra firefighter to each engine unit throughout the city as a precaution, citing the increased difficulty of battling blazes in the snow. It also deployed 100 extra ambulances on the streets.
* Alternate-side parking rules and parking-meter rules were suspended across the city through tomorrow. And senior centers also were closed today.
In Massachusetts, Gov. Deval Patrick signed an executive order barring all private cars from highways and secondary roads in the state effective at 4 p.m. yesterday.
Connecticut also declared a state of emergency, with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy imposing a travel ban on the state’s limited access highways. Utilities reported more than 23,000 customers without power.
More than 225,000 people were without power in New England.
Bloomberg warned motorists to stay home so the city’s armada of plows, salt trucks and front-end loaders could start quickly clearing the streets.
“City sanitation workers are on a full mobilization and have been since Thursday night. They’re on 12-hour shifts,” he said.
“By [this] morning I would expect most streets to be more than passable. We don’t think it’ll be that big a deal,” he added.
Still, “ ‘stay home’ is a good rule,” he told Gotham residents.
“My biggest concern is that people go out and walk, slip, fall into traffic. You can’t take nature too lightly. It’s certainly not going to be Hurricane Sandy. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get badly hurt or killed if you’re not careful.”
Meteorologists appeared more alarmed. Nemo is “a very dangerous situation, and people need to take proper action,” said Louis Uccellini, director of the National Weather Service.
Some residents and visitors, meanwhile, were glum about the storm putting a serious damper on their weekend activities.
Cyrus Laali, a 30-year-old chiropractor from Texas, was walking through the onset of yesterday’s mess on the streets of SoHo with his 27-year-old girlfriend.
“I’m coming from Texas. It’s 70 and sunny,” Laali said. “I love New York, but I didn’t think I’d be greeted with this.”
But Betty Kim, 31, of Brooklyn, said the storm won’t spoil her plans.
“I’ll be going full throttle hitting bars and restaurants with my friends. I’m really not afraid of the storm,” she said.
dan.mangan@nypost.com
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