Nerves frayed and tempers flared in Connecticut on the fourth day without power since the weekend, when the unseasonably early storm raged from West Virginia to Maine, bringing down tree limbs and downing power lines.

At the peak of the storm, more than 800,000 homes in Connecticut were in the dark, prompting Governor Dannel Malloy to call it the worst power outage in history.

Hotels in central Connecticut were sold out as residents escaped homes without heat and electricity.

The power outage crippled traffic lights, causing a rash of minor accidents, and knocked out home water wells, leaving toilets out of commission.

In the New York City area, extreme delays on storm-battered train lines forced some commuters to drive to work, jamming roadways with hour-long traffic backups.

The wintry mess over the weekend blanketed cities and towns across the region with record snowfall for October, including 32 inches (81.3 cm) of snow measured in the western Massachusetts town of Peru, according to the National Weather Service.

Weather was blamed for at least 13 deaths and nearly 1,800 people sought warmth overnight in 32 shelters open across Connecticut, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, the American Red Cross said.

In New Hampshire, where at the peak 315,000 households were out of power, people hunkered down in an emergency shelter at Memorial High School in Manchester and some people sought refuge at local businesses.

"There's a tree, right on top of a wire, on my street, right by the school bus stop, and nothing has happened since Sunday," said Dinen, 64, from Bedford. "My husband and I went to the YMCA to take a shower. We're not even members."

- Reuters