From Maryland to Maine, millions of Americans were digging out and doing damage control Thursday after a blustery nor'easter dumped over 2 feet of gloppy snow across the Northeast.
More than a million utility customers were still shivering in the cold and waiting for the power to come back on while the legions of workers schlepping through the slush after the unwanted snow day faced nightmare commutes.
Hundreds of flights remained grounded as airports emerging from the foul weather-induced paralysis struggled to clear runways so the planes could land and depart.
And in snow-blitzed New Jersey towns like Westfield and Montclair, the buzz of chainsaws was the soundtrack for the day as municipal workers cut hundreds of toppled trees down to size and cleared them off of damaged houses, downed power lines and clogged roads.
The nasty nor'easter also was deadly: In Suffern, New York, a tree fell on an 88-year-old woman, police said.
Photos: Nor'easter slams East Coast ... again
It was a daunting déjà vu for many across the I-95 corridor, which was hit last Friday by a deadly nor'easter — one that cut the lights to more than 2 million from Virginia to Maine.
This time, it was Massachusetts that had the dubious distinction of having the most residents in the dark, with electricity cut to more than 343,000 customers as of Thursday morning. New Jersey was next with more than 229,000 customers still without juice.
Meanwhile, many New York City-bound commuters were feeling powerless.
In the Garden State, New Jersey Transit, which has had trouble getting commuters to the city on time even when the weather is good, canceled service on its most-heavily traveled train lines Thursday morning because of downed trees on the tracks. It remained to be seen whether the transit agency would be able to get the tracks cleared in time for the evening commute.
Frustrated train riders were forced onto crowded buses and the lines at the stops in communities such as Bloomfield and Clifton snaked around street corners.
Amtrak, however, resumed service between New York City and Boston, but on a modified schedule.
The nor'easter on Wednesday brought a wide range of snowfall across the mid-Atlantic and Northeast, from just a few inches in parts of Delaware and Maryland to over 2 feet in New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
Philadelphia International Airport recorded about 6 inches of snow, the National Weather Service reported. Sloatsburg, New York got 26 inches of powder.
New York City's Central Park was hit with less than 3 inches of snow, but it fell like like sloppy wet ticker tape and coated the streets and sidewalks with a thick sludge.
Witnesses also reported lightning and peals of thunder across the region during the snowstorm — a rare phenomenon called "thundersnow." At its peak, snow fell at a rate of up to 3 inches an hour.
The women's basketball team at Northeastern University got an unplanned workout Wednesday when its bus got stuck in the snow in Philadelphia, where the Colonial Athletic Association championship tournament is taking place.
A school spokesperson told NBC Boston that the bus stalled a few blocks from the team's hotel after practice — so the players got out and pushed it back on course.
"They raced off the bus to help push, got it moving a couple of feet and around the bend, off the hill," the spokesperson said.
Some 2,600 departures and arrivals were scrapped Wednesday at airports in Boston, Philadelphia, New York and Newark, New Jersey. The New Jersey State Police responded to more than 530 multiple-vehicle crashes because of the icy conditions.
A New Jersey teacher was listed as stable after being struck by lightning outside Manchester Township Middle School during the height of the thundersnow, police said.
And 10 people were hospitalized with carbon monoxide poisoning from a generator that had been powered up inside a home in White Plains, New York, police told NBC New York.
The storm hit as coastal towns like Duxbury, Massachusetts, were still recovering from devastating flooding that demolished part of its sea wall during the previous nor'easter.
Related: Another nor'easter heads for East Coast
"We've heard that there could be 40- to 50 mile-an-hour gusts of wind. We do have high tides, and that's a big sea out there," town manager Rene Read told NBC News on Wednesday. "We're tired [from the last five days], but morale is good."
But the town was able to breathe a sigh of relief after the sea wall held up during Thursday morning's high tide.
"This morning's high tide did not compromise any of the sea wall nor did it affect the improvised armoring of sections where it had breached. Work continues today on the sea wall," a spokesperson for the Duxbury Fire Department tweeted.
In the historic Maine town of Kennebunk, best known as the Bush family's summer vacation spot, Beach Avenue had been closed since last Friday and was not expected to reopen until this Friday.
Eric Labelle, the town's public services director, told New England Cable News they would examine the sea walls, roads and culverts after the storm passes.
"There may be some compromised areas," he said.
As she surveyed new damage along Beach Avenue, Tami York, a Kennebunk resident, told NECN: "It's just going to add insult to injury."
