LIers stare down the storm

With windblown snow taking a horizontal route to the earth, and predictions a major winter storm might soon turn into a blizzard, many Long Islanders chose Wednesday to simply stay home.

Those who ventured out were mostly shop workers and business owners who found themselves with almost no customers to serve.

PHOTOS: Click here to see the latest snowstorm photos from around LI

Scenes from a snowy day on Long Island and beyond:

Mineola wasn't exactly a ghost town as the storm roared through town. But workers at coffee shops felt pretty lonely Wednesday morning in their half-empty stores.

"I guess everybody's scared of coming in," said Ricky Gutierrez, manager of Gourmet Grill, located near the Long Island Rail Road station. Only about half the usual number of customers were in the shop Wednesday morning, he said.

The blare from a television was just about the only noise at the normally bustling store.

Gutierrez said the weather was not something a small business has any control over.

"That's how it is sometimes," he said.

He said the cafe might close several hours earlier than normal, around 2 or 3 p.m., instead of the usual 8:30 p.m.

"It might not be worth it today," he said.

At the Mo' Joe coffee shop, near Winthrop Hospital, the usual morning rush of hospital employees and train commuters was nowhere to be found. But owner Christian Crespo chose to be optimistic, though the number of customers was a third of his daily traffic.

"Who knows, they could just be running late," he said.

Crespo thought the shop might turn out to be a refuge later in the day for commuters waiting for late trains.

"If the trains get delayed, it's not the worst thing in the world for us," he said.

With the day off from work Wednesday, Andrew MacArthur braved the elements and went to a sparsely populated Roosevelt Field mall.

Blizzard or not, Valentine's Day was coming, and the Great Neck resident had to get a gift for his girlfriend.

"I figured they would be packed on any other day, so I decided to give it a shot," said MacArthur, one of the few people shopping at the sprawling mall.

When he finished about 11 a.m., he said, "I'm outta here. I'm going home."

At the Peconic Bay Medical Center in Riverhead, officials enacted a level-one emergency action plan Tuesday night and were preparing Wednesday afternoon to shift it to level three, meaning employees on the grounds cannot leave unless they are released, spokeswoman Denise Civiletti said.

The plan ensures there's enough critical staff to operate the hospital through the end of a storm or another incident, she said.

"We want to ensure we have the full complement of people we need," she said, adding that some workers unable to get to work have been picked up in four-wheel-drive vehicles.

The Long Island Expressway from Hauppauge to Riverhead was only partially plowed in some spots. Only a single lane was open from Medford to Riverhead. About a half-dozen vehicles moved at 20 mph Wednesday morning.

The Tanger Outlet Center in Riverhead was closed until noon Friday, a security guard said.

Snowplows in the mall's vast parking lot dumped snow into huge mounds, as security guards directed traffic out of the lot.

Dean Metropoulis, 25, of New Hyde Park, took the N24 bus from his home in New Hyde Park to visit a friend working at the Roosevelt Field mall. The bus, he said, was on time.

He didn't have to go to work today so he decided to get out and about. "What's so great about staying home all day?" Metropoulis said. And when he does get home, he plans to break out the snowplow and pick up some money by digging people out.

Salvatore Cino, general manager of Sbarro's Restaurant at the mall, was still waiting for his first customer at 11 a.m. But he anticipated more activity by lunchtime.

"There are people working in the mall, and I'm sure we'll have a small influx at lunch," he said.

He noted the restaurant had "scaled back on the pizza," and only had a crew of three people on hand. "We'll most likely close early when the snow comes heavy in the afternoon," Cino said.

A Huntington business owner shoveled the sidewalk outside his shop when the snow took a break.

"Just trying to clear off the sidewalks to make it safe for anyone who decides to stop in. It's easier to do it now before the heavier stuff starts later," said Angelo Cice, owner of International Automotive Repairs, at 89 E. Main St. He said the business would stay open as long as it seemed reasonable. Two of his employees showed up at the shop, which repairs Ferraris and other high-end vehicles.

"They're really faithful guys. Yesterday I told them to use their judgment about whether to come in, because nobody needs to get hurt," Cice said.

Dan Eberle of Huntington said the day was like any other day, only better.

"It's great," he said while at Huntington Town Hall to drop off some paperwork. "The roads are clear. Usually, the town is packed when you go out to lunch . . . I work from home so transportation is not an issue - had things to do. It's like any other day. I came here and I was right in, right out. Now I'm going out to lunch."

As long as a bus was available, Brian Gayle, 29, of Rochdale, Queens, figured he could make it to his mother's home in Hempstead. So there he was in Hempstead's bus terminal, named for the late civil rights activist Rosa Parks, after about a 45-minute trip on the N6 from Jamaica, Queens, at about 10 a.m.

The trip to his mother's home took not much longer than usual, he said.

"There wasn't that many people, so he didn't have to make so many stops," Gayle said, referring to the bus driver.

He came out to visit his mother, adding, "I ain't scared of traveling. Once there's a bus, I'll move around."

In the Town of North Hempstead, it was business as usual - the Board of Zoning Appeals held its scheduled meeting Wednesday morning, said town spokesman Collin Nash.

The town planned to keep its 311 call center open till midnight if necessary, and the tax office was open on the last day for property owners to pay tax bills, Nash said.

And, "our highway guys are, of course, plowing and doing what they do," he said.

In Brookhaven, where some areas east of Route 112 already have 7 inches of snow on the ground, officials pleaded with residents to avoid parking on the street.

Parked cars are a huge impediment to clearing the town's 2,500 miles of roads, none of which are wider than 34 feet, Highway Superintendent John Rouse said.

The town's Web site played a message from Rouse at 3 p.m. Wednesday, telling residents it is "absolutely imperative" they park in their driveways or even on their lawns. Still, not everyone got the message, Rouse said.

"Now what I have all along our roadways are little glaciers," he said, adding that parked cars make it difficult to get larger equipment through streets.

The town has 500 pieces of equipment on the road, Rouse said. Workers reported for duty at 3 a.m. Wednesday, he said.

Some town officials have also talked about the possibility of a local law precluding residents from parking in the street during and after a snowstorm.

For now, Rouse said he will continue to ask residents to keep parked cars off the road until the snow is over and streets have been cleared.

By midafternoon, winds in Westbury picked up and carried heavy amounts of snow through the air. The sounds of slowly passing cars and distant shovels hitting the ground were heard throughout the neighborhood. Most restaurants, businesses and other services that line Post Avenue were closed.

The street were pedestrian-free as parked cars continued to line the interior streets.

At a Dunkin' Donuts, three men sat silently drinking their coffee. At Lin Garden, a local Chinese restaurant, three workers feverishly continued their cooking. One worker, who declined to give her name and who said the manager was unavailable, said orders were still coming in and the restaurant was doing its best to deliver.

In some parts of the neighborhood, the frigid air looked like fog as visibility continued to decline. The air's loud wisp sounded like humming as some brave souls quickly ran in and out of their vehicles.

The only steady traffic continued to be garbage trucks, the N35 MTA bus, and trucks with plows attached to the front of them.

New snow made the muddy road, once a dark grayish brown, white again with each passing hour.

The message seems to have gotten out - don't try to fly out of New York.

The few passengers who showed up at LaGuardia Airport, anyway, either didn't get word that their flights were canceled or they were going to try to take whatever standby flight they could.

"I tried to leave earlier this morning, but they said the flights were booked," said Lauro Huerta, 39, a promoter who was trying to catch a flight to Los Angeles and get home to Orange County, Calif.

He was hoping to get on an American Airlines flight leaving about 11 a.m.

Liang Ding, a professor from Cleveland trying to get to Houston for a conference, said he checked AirTran's Web site this morning and it showed his flight was still departing as scheduled.

"I booked a flight on Southwest and they're canceled. Now I booked a flight on AirTran and this morning it still showed the flight," Ding said. "They should inform us."

His wife called to tell him flights were still available - in Albany. "I was also thinking of going to Baltimore" and flying out of there, he said.

Julie and Jeff Kiker were spending the last few hours of their whirlwind trip to New York waiting on chairs near Spirit Airline's ticket counter.

"We just came in for a day, and we're supposed to leave tonight," said Julie Kiker.

The couple had come to see the Brooklyn Tabernacle for Julie's 39th birthday and now were trying to get home to Toledo.

If they couldn't fly out today, the next available flight on Spirit was Saturday.

"We're looking at all our options. We might drive," Julie Kiker said. "We can't stay here until Saturday."

They seemed resigned to the interminable wait.

"What can you do?" Jeff Kiker said.

"I'' rather be safe. We have books, we have each other," his wife said.

With Yamiche Alcindor, Sophia Chang, Mark Harrington, Deborah Morris, Patrick Whittle and Olivia Winslow

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