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© AP Photo/David DupreyVehicles are stranded on the New York State Thruway during a winter storm in Buffalo, N.Y., Thursday, Dec. 2, 2010.
Hundreds of cold and hungry motorists were stranded on a western New York highway Thursday after an accident caused a backup and the idling trucks and cars got stuck overnight in heavy snow. Authorities said 16 miles of eastbound lanes along Interstate 90 were shut Thursday in Buffalo's eastern suburbs, along with a 10-mile westbound stretch. Matt Welling was hauling a double tractor-trailer full of groceries when traffic came to a standstill a few miles east of Buffalo.

He spent the night "sitting back, playing a little Solitaire on the computer, taking a nap," the Wegmans driver said at midmorning, 8 1/2 hours into his wait. "I'm pretty chilly, hungry. A nice cup of coffee would do pretty well right now," he said by cell phone. State Trooper Daniel Golinski said the highway was closed shortly before 3 a.m. Thursday after vehicles backed up behind a truck accident were buried in blowing snow. The truck jackknifed around 8 p.m. Wednesday and has been removed, but crews were still working Thursday to free the stranded vehicles, Golinski said. "There's a lot of work to do yet," he said.

The storm buried the southern neighborhoods of Buffalo and the city's southern and eastern suburbs under two feet of snow, but largely spared downtown. "Very, very light flurries are blowing in the air, but streets downtown are pavement. Maybe an inch is on the ground," police spokesman Michael DeGeorge said from headquarters.

A lake effect snow warning remained in effect as the snow continued to fall through the morning Thursday, piling up at a rate of 1 to 2 inches an hour and punctuated by occasional thunder and lightning. The snow was expected to shift north through Buffalo during the day.

Dozens of schools canceled classes Thursday and power remained out for about 10,000 utility customers in eastern New York. Snowmobiles and emergency vehicles were being used to check on the snowbound motorists. Drivers were also stranded on an intersecting 3-mile stretch of Interstate 190 that was closed. Motorist Bob Schultz left his home near Lake Erie Wednesday night with the intention of going bowling but never made it.

"Now I'm trying to get back to Lake View, but the alternative is trying to get to somewhere where I can sleep," he told Buffalo's WIVB-TV as he sat in his snowbound car. Golinski described the scene overnight as "13 miles of bumper-to-bumper cars, two lanes each - three lanes each depending on where they are." In Pennsylvania's Erie region, the National Weather Service issued a lake effect snow advisory through Friday morning.