WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — A deadly blizzard walloped the eastern United States yesterday, paralysing Washington and other cities under a heavy blanket of snow as officials warned millions of people to remain indoors until the storm eases up.

At least eight people were killed in three states in road accidents, officials said, as snow piled up from Arkansas to New York. Forecasters said the storm dubbed “Snowzilla” would last into today as it moved menacingly up the coast.

Thousands of motorists were stranded for hours on an ice-coated highway in Kentucky. Metro and bus networks were shut down in Washington for the entire weekend, and largely shut in Philadelphia and New Jersey yesterday.

In the capital Washington, more than a foot (30 centimetres) of snow was already on the ground, with another foot expected by midnight.

“There’s no reason to be out there,” city Mayor Muriel Bowser told NBC News. “It will be driving snow and windy and we need to take heed.”

City Police Chief Cathy Lanier said white-out conditions, and virtually zero visibility had been reported in some areas and urged residents to stay indoors so snowploughs could work to clear the streets.

A blizzard warning was in effect for a large swathe of the eastern United States, from Washington up to New York, the National Weather Service (NWS) said, as battalions of snowploughs and salt spreaders laboured through the night and into last night.

The storm is expected to affect about 85 million Americans, about one quarter of the US population. Before it’s all over, it could cause more than US$1 billion in damage, NWS officials said.

“I wouldn’t say we’re even halfway there yet,” Robert Maloney, director of Baltimore’s office of emergency management, told CNN.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a Republican presidential contender, left the campaign trail in New Hampshire to oversee the emergency response in his snowbound state.

Christie ordered the state’s bus and light rail to stop running at 2:00 am last night.

“The overall message is, we will get through the storm. We always do. That is the way we do things in NJ,” Christie tweeted.

Snow and sleet have already hit the southern states of Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, West Virginia and Virginia, unusual for the region.

Eighteen states were under blizzard or other winter storm warnings, The Weather Channel reported.

“We’re having a lot of accidents,” said Pat McCrory, governor of North Carolina.

Six people were killed in road accidents, Nicole Meister, a spokeswoman for the state’s emergency management office, told

AFP.

Nearly 150,000 people were without power in the state, emergency officials said.

CNN reported that power outages had affected another 10,000 elsewhere.

In Kentucky, thousands of motorists became stranded overnight in a backup along a 35-mile (56 kilometre) ice-slickened stretch of Interstate 75, and remained trapped on the road early yesterday.

“I would say we were probably smack dab in the middle of it,” one driver, Ben Schmidt, told MSNBC. “We didn’t get any sleep.”

One person was killed in Kentucky and another in Virginia, officials told AFP.

Thousands of flights were cancelled because of the storm, while officials in Washington took the unusual step of closing down the city’s rail and bus system from Friday night until tomorrow morning.

Metrorail, the second busiest underground train network in the United States after New York , serves about 700,000 customers a day in Washington, Maryland and Virginia.

In Philadelphia, only two main train lines were running “to help those that need to travel, specifically emergency service and hospital personnel,” the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority (SEPTA) said.