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For those yearning for a white Christmas, the snowstorm that hit Lancaster County and much of the Northeast Saturday was an early gift.
For retailers and others hoping to make the most of the last Saturday before Christmas, the hefty snowfall was an icy impediment.
Snow emergencies were declared in Lancaster city and in municipalities across the county. Graduations were called off, libraries and gyms were closed, and Saturday worship services were canceled.
There were minor accidents on county roads Saturday, and a fatal snowmobile accident in Salisbury Township.
Some 1,200 PPL Corp. customers in Mount Joy were without electricity for more than six hours Saturday, and there were minor power outages reported elsewhere.
The Red Rose Transit Authority shut down bus routes at 5 p.m. Saturday. Park City Center and the outlets closed early. Family attractions including the Ice Park at Clipper Magazine Stadium closed because of the weather.
Lancaster County Emergency Management Coordinator Randy Gockley said the county hadn't seen a snowstorm on this scale in several years.
The storm's timing — coming as it did on a Saturday, when schools and many offices were closed, and tractor-trailer traffic was reduced — made it a lot easier to manage, Gockley said.
Gockley said people would need to use caution going to church and Sunday activities, as some roads may still be snow-covered.
Scott Tanguy, PennDOT's senior highway maintenance manager in Lancaster County, said PennDOT crews, working 12-hour shifts, had made good progress in making roads in the county passable.
Still, he said late Saturday that "we have a good bit of work ahead of us yet."
He said he doesn't think anyone should expect bare roads by this morning, so he urged caution and said people should stay home if they can.
Crews would continue to clean up roads today, he said, noting, "We're set up to work through Monday evening. Whether it will take that remains to be seen."
Snow fell at a rate of an inch — or more, in some areas — an hour for much of Saturday. About a foot of snow fell in northern Lancaster County, while areas such as Quarryville and Holtwood in southern Lancaster County were expected to see snowfall totals of up to 2 feet.
Alan Reppert, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather in State College, said it was a "significant storm." While no further accumulation was expected today, wind gusts of up to 30 miles per hour likely would cause some drifting of snow, he said.
Reppert said he expected to see sunshine breaking through Sunday, and temperatures today at or below freezing. He forecasted a partly sunny, still breezy and cold Monday.
As for the prospect of a white Christmas, something Lancaster County hasn't seen since 2002, Reppert said, "It does look like we'll have some snow on the ground for Christmas."
That may be cold comfort to Millersville University students, who were slated to participate in a commencement ceremony today.
The commencement has been canceled, not postponed, said Janet Kacskos, director of communications for the university. She said the 470 students who were to participate are graduated.
Lancaster County Academy's graduation was postponed from Saturday to a date, not yet determined, in January. Lancaster County Academy is an alternative public school for students who do not fare well in ordinary high schools.
Diane Tyson, director of the academy, said the postponement gives the academy staff more time to get a few more students "across the finish line," so they can graduate, too.
"There is a silver lining in this cloud," Tyson said.
For David Ober, general partner of Rockvale Outlets, there weren't any silver linings in Saturday's snowstorm.
Indeed, he considered the storm to be something of a nightmare. "I was hoping it was all a dream, and that I'd wake up, and it was Christmas morning," Ober said.
He had another hope, which also was dashed: "I was hoping (the storm) would hit Washington, D.C., and go out to sea," he said.
Early Saturday, Ober said he was determined "to fight this snow as hard as we can fight it," with the aim of keeping Rockvale open for business into the evening.
But store employees were unable to make it to work, and retailers couldn't fill their shifts, so Rockvale closed at 5 p.m.
For retailers, Saturday was a critical shopping day.
Rockvale did perhaps 25 percent of the business it would have done on a normal Saturday before Christmas, Ober said, noting that grandmothers in particular were not shopping. "That's a critical population" he said, explaining that grandmothers tended to be the ones who buy better children's clothing and other pricey gifts.
Rachel Gallagher, general manager of Park City Center, said that the Saturday before Christmas usually was a day comparable to Black Friday for retailers.
But Saturday was more akin to a whiteout than to Black Friday.
Some shoppers made it to the mall, but their numbers didn't compare to the usual, Gallagher said, noting, "if it was a regular day, we would be elbow-to-elbow packed."
She said she doesn't get daily sales numbers from the mall's stores, but some stores were reporting that their numbers were very far below what they had hoped to make for the day. "Hopefully, Sunday through Thursday, we can pick some of that business up," Gallagher said.
Park City closed Saturday at 5 p.m., though Kohl's department store planned to remain open until its regularly scheduled hour: midnight.
The mall shops are slated to close at 7 p.m. Sunday, but Gallagher said she was giving the store owners the option to stay open later. The department stores will be open later, as scheduled.
Tanger Outlets closed earlier than other shopping centers — at 3 p.m. — because Tanger manager Chuck Simmons wanted to make sure employees could travel home in daylight.
"The deals are going to be here tomorrow," Simmons said philosophically Saturday afternoon. "Obviously, we'd love to be open, but your priorities change" in an emergency, and "safety is always first."
Simmons said Tanger saw sporadic activity Saturday, including six buses full of shoppers, mostly from New York.
"Considering the snow, I'm surprised we had as many come out as did," he said, noting that turnout "was nowhere near a normal Saturday before Christmas. There's no way to even compare it."
Still, he said, "The weather is something we have no control over. All we can do is manage it."
Simmons said Tanger would open at noon Sunday — two hours late. "The big issue (Sunday) is going to be drifting snow," he said. "That can be a real rascal to keep that in tow."
For Christmas tree farmer Lou Bowser, drifting snow shouldn't be a problem.
The owner of Bowser's Tree Farm in Lititz said "we enjoy the snow. We're all snowmobilers."
"We have carts to bring the trees in, and we just switch" from tractors to snowmobiles when it snows, he said, noting, "Most of the time, it works out good."
Bowser said his customers dwindled as Saturday wore on and grew snowier, but he had plenty of customers Saturday morning. Some of them, having procrastinated in buying a Christmas tree, had only two requirements for a tree — that it be green and have "a pointy top," Bowser said.
Nearly every weekend this season has brought bad weather, he said. "We were either in mud or rain," he said, noting that at least Saturday's weather was in keeping with Christmas.
Reuel Dean Lemon, owner of Dean's Trees in Neffsville, said Saturday's snowstorm meant that the scheduled tractor rides for the choose-and-cut crowd had to be canceled.
"I tell you, we've been open all day," Lemon said Saturday afternoon, "and we didn't do anything like we'd normally do, but we had customers all day."
He said he wasn't disappointed that the snowstorm hampered sales. "I expected this," he said. "We had a good year, so I'm satisfied."
Barry Parsons is the general manager of Stauffers of Kissel Hill's Lititz store, where Santa was to appear with a reindeer Saturday morning.
Santa made it, despite the snow, "but the reindeer got stuck at the North Pole," Parsons said.
Apparently, Rudolph wasn't available to lend his navigational skills.
Stauffers plans to bring Santa back to the store, with the reindeer, some day this week, Parsons said.
He said his store was swamped Friday night with shoppers, and quite busy Saturday morning. "Our baking aisle got hit extremely hard," Parsons said, noting that shoppers — including his own wife — likely took advantage of their snowbound Saturday by doing some holiday baking.
It wasn't Christmas cookies being made all day Saturday at the Millersville home of Anita and Ron Roma. It was sausage.
Anita Roma said that her husband's family has been making sausage for the holidays for decades. Her husband's parents used to own a "small mom-and-pop kind of grocery store and meat counter" in Chester, she said.
The family used to make sausage for customers. Now, they make it as gifts for family and friends. "You only get it a second time if you make comments about how great it is," Anita Roma said.
Roma's brother-in-law traveled from Hagerstown, Md., early Saturday morning with 150 pounds of pork butt in his car.
The journey normally would take about an hour and a half. On Saturday, it took four hours.
"He said, 'I've got nowhere else for this meat to go, so we're doing it," Anita Roma said, noting, with a laugh, "That's sausage dedication."
Shari Vegso-Wilson, artistic director of the COBALT Dance Company, knows something about dedication.
She has been leading 32 young dancers through rehearsals of "The Nutcracker" since September. Her company was slated to perform "The Nutcracker" at the Hempfield High School Performing Arts Center Saturday evening.
But Hempfield School District closed its facilities Saturday because of the snow, so the show couldn't go on.
The company is hoping to add a 7 p.m. performance Sunday — in addition to its planned 2:30 p.m. matinee.
Her dancers were "initially sad, very sad" about the loss of the Saturday show, but Vegso-Wilson said "there are things you can't control and certainly weather is one of those things."
Besides, she said, she thinks a Friday performance by the company might be the reason for the snowstorm.
"We had a really powerful 'Waltz of the Snowflakes,' " she said, in jest. "It seems we called about the snow … When you have a particularly powerful dance, it can call down the heavens. Apparently, we are to blame."
She continued: "Look outside. It's like a picture postcard. This is what we hope for from the season. This is what Christmas is supposed to be like."
On a day such as Saturday, Vegso-Wilson noted, "We dancers really all just bow to the great choreographer in the sky."
Suzanne Cassidy is a staff writer for the Sunday News. Her e-mail address is scassidy@lnpnews.com.
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