Blizzard 2010 sparks travelers' nightmares

Many who ventured out before the blizzard hit ended up stranded overnight and Monday in airport terminals, sitting on idle trains and huddling wherever they could find a warm place as Long Island struggled to dig itself out.

As is often the case, difficult times brought out both the best and worst in people.

While two men saw a chance to rob a stranded motorist on Hicksville's Plainview Road, a shop not far from there welcomed those seeking a place to stay.

STRANDED IN WAITING ROOM. Ammatu Muftahu, 28, of the Bronx, was one of dozens of passengers stranded in a waiting room at the Hicksville Long Island Rail Road station after trains were canceled and bus service declined. She was trying to catch a train home after her job as a home health aide in Jericho.

"It's been cold in here," Muftahu said. "I haven't been able to sleep. They said we would be here for one hour and we've been here forever."

NAVY SON DELAYED. Paula Schreck had waited four months to see her son Eric, who has spent much of the year hunting Somali pirates with the U.S. Navy. But Eric, a seaman and 2009 graduate of Sayville High School, stayed in Jacksonville, Fla., Monday as the blizzard delayed flights into Philadelphia, where he was to connect to a Long Island MacArthur Airport-bound flight. He's expected to arrive Tuesday.

"I can't wait to see my son," Schreck said.

STUCK ON A TRAIN. Samuel Acevedo, 55, a jewelry salesman in Brentwood, had spent about 14 hours on an idle LIRR train at Penn Station with his granddaughter Lilli Agosto and her friend, Marvin, 11. All three had attended the WWE's Raw World Tour, a wrestling show, at Madison Square Garden.

Acevedo was content to wait in the heated train. Railroad employees offered water and police patrolled the station.

"The Long Island Rail Road has been very accommodating," he said.

Lilli, in between naps on Acevedo's shoulder, said she played with other kids on her train.

"It's kind of fun when you meet new friends," she said.

DELAYED AFTER GRADUATION. Many newly graduated New York Police Department officers and their families sat stranded at Jamaica Station Monday.

Mary Moran, 23, of Middle Island, wasn't going to miss her brother John's graduation at Madison Square Garden Monday, regardless of Mother Nature's plans.

So Moran and her parents went to Manhattan a day early and got a hotel room.

The family encountered delay after delay and crowd upon crowd. "We were just rats with the rest of the people," she joked. But they did get to see John, 25, graduate before the long wait for a train at Jamaica.

BEACH-WEATHER DREAMING. Amy Dolch, a Brooklyn math teacher from West Babylon and her fiance, Adam Trager, spent their time at Penn Station with their backs leaning on a corridor wall, trying to solve a 300-piece jigsaw puzzle.

It was of "a very lovely beach scene," which she picked purposely to conjure up warm thoughts, she said.

Dolch and Trager went to the city despite the weather advisories in order to see the Alvin Ailey dance company.

CAR STUCK, HE'S ROBBED. The robbery victim was a 27-year-old man whose 2008 Toyota Prius became stuck in the snow. Nassau County police said two men offered to help push the car out of the snow around 1 a.m. Monday. But instead, one of the men "leaned in the window with his hand under his jacket and demanded the victim's wallet." The suspect took the wallet and the pair ran off. Police have not identified the victim.