From Lorraine Mirabella, reporting from downtown Baltimore:

The streets were mostly deserted in downtown Baltimore as of mid-morning Saturday. An elderly man carrying a tin pail and large duffel bag trudged up a hill in the middle of East Saratoga Street through ankle deep snow, waving away questions of whether he had a place to go.

Outside the emergency department at Mercy Hospital, maintenance workers Eric Brown and Allen McKnight had been shoveling sidewalks all night, stopping for just a few hours sleep in the hospital’s sleep study center.

They had arrived at the hospital for their regular shift at 7:30 Friday and never left, clocking out, then clocking back in.

“Whatever you are during the day, you’re snow shovelers when you’re needed,” McKnight said.

He estimated the two, working with plow operators, had already shoveled miles of the icy snow, both near the front and emergency entrances, as they struggled to keep up with the drifts.

“Oh boy, it’s been a good one,” Brown said of the snowstorm. “I haven’t seen anything like this since ’79.”