Winter storm pounds East Coast

Pedestrians and motorists brave wind and snow on Fifth Avenue. The city’s public schools were closed Friday after several inches of snow fell in the first storm of the winter.   (John Minchillo / Associated Press)

Leo Lajqi blows snow off a sidewalk in Brooklyn.  (Justin Lane / EPA)

Workers clear a plaza of snow.  (Seth Wenig / Associated Press)

A homeless man seeks shelter under an umbrella as he sits begging in front of a store.  (Sebastian Gabriel / EPA)

A man uses a snow blower to clear a sidewalk in Brooklyn.  (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

Bruce Penland pulls his daughter Jordan on a sled on an ice-covered street in Accomac, Va., on the Delmarva Peninsula.  (Jay Diem / Associated Press)

A woman walks down the middle of a snow-covered street in Brooklyn.   (Michael Heiman / Getty Images)

A man digs his car out in Brooklyn after a winter storm left several inches of snow in New York.  (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

A bicycle is buried by overnight snow in Queens.   (John Minchillo / Associated Press)

A tattered flag flies above a flooded yard along the shore of Scituate Harbor, south of Boston. A blustering winter storm that dropped nearly 2 feet of snow just north of Boston, shut down major highways in New York and Pennsylvania and forced U.S. airlines to cancel thousands of flights nationwide.  (Michael Dwyer / Associated Press)

A man shovels snow in Brooklyn.  (Justin Lane / EPA)

A man takes photos of snowmen with the Capitol in the background.  (Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

A light dusting of snow covers statutes of soldiers at the Korean War Memorial.  (J. David Ake / Associated Press)