Cape still reeling as region digs out

State roads were treacherous, hundreds of houses were without electricity, and people were stuck outside and inside their homes yesterday in parts of Cape Cod, hit hard by the Blizzard of 2005.

The storm ripped into the region with such ferocity it surprised even those used to disasters.

As power outages developed early Sunday on the Cape, people began calling police and town managers frantically, searching for the nearest shelter. The American Red Cross was spurred to double the number of shelters from four to eight.

Police and firefighters, already struggling to help people who were stranded on the roads, were called in to drive elderly residents, families without heat, and even volunteers to nearby shelters.

Centerville residents Jane and Albert Ruddick, both 89, were still shaken by the storm yesterday, as they waited for their son to pick them up from a shelter at Barnstable High School.

"I just hope I never have to go through another snowstorm like that again," Jane Ruddick said. "That was so frightening."

She and her husband left their house so quickly Sunday morning they only had time to put on sneakers and light coats before police drove them to the shelter. They packed a small suitcase, but never changed out of their clothes.

The four additional shelters were opened in Provincetown, Chatham, Falmouth, and Eastham, said Paul Clark, director of preparedness and response for the Cape Cod Chapter of the Red Cross, which operates out of Hyannis.

By late evening yesterday, one shelter, in Sandwich, remained open. Snow still blocked some side streets, preventing people from getting to their homes.

Unplowed roads also kept people trapped inside their houses yesterday, said Trooper Bruce Buckley of the Massachusetts State Police in Yarmouth.

"A lot of them can't get out," he said. "We've had a few calls. There is some apprehension in their voices, but we know we can get someone down there if they need it."

Route 6 from Exit 4 to Provincetown was open, but parts of it were still covered in snow and ice, he said.

"Seems like every half hour someone is going fast and spinning out," Clark said. Several cars had to be pulled out of snowbanks, but there were no serious accidents on the highways.

About 500 homes remained without electricity on the Cape yesterday, said a spokesman for NStar, and 150 to 200 in Plymouth, New Bedford, and Wareham.

The fifth-biggest blizzard in the region's recorded history caused its share of debilitation and danger. A pregnant mother and her two children from Plymouth were being treated for carbon monoxide poisoning yesterday at Massachusetts General Hospital after their furnace exhaust vent was blocked by a 4-foot snow drift.

In Cambridge, a 7-year-old boy was treated and released at Massachusetts General Hospital after inhaling carbon monoxide while waiting in a car for his older brother, officials said. And in Boston, police yesterday afternoon found an unidentified man of about 30 years old dead in a snowbound Town Taxi on Huntington Avenue. The car's exhaust pipe was covered by snow, and police said evidence suggests the man may have died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Mayor Thomas M. Menino urged residents to dig out their fireplace, dryer, and heating system vents and shovel out fire hydrants in front of their homes. He also asked parents not to let their children play in snowbanks, saying they could slip and fall into the street.

The return to school will be somber at Orchard Gardens pilot school in Boston, where a 10-year-old boy who died of carbon monoxide poisoning and cardiac arrest Sunday was a student. Angel Serrano of Roxbury was sitting in a running car with a snow-clogged tailpipe.

Najwa Abdul-Tawwab, the Orchard Gardens principal, said staff members will be available to comfort teachers and pupils, as well as educate families about the dangers of carbon monoxide.

"He was a very sweet, quiet, well-behaved student," she said of Angel. "It's a great loss for children, as well as staff and family."

The roof of the Plymouth Sports Dome had deflated like a giant balloon by 9 a.m. yesterday, unable to bear the weight of a day's worth of snowfall.

"It's like a big void, emotionally and physically," Jason Tassinari, the general manager of the facility, said yesterday.

In Boston, many people went back to work.

It was the day of the duck boot, the shovel, the snowshoe, the sense of determination.

Thanks to four-wheel-drive, fuzzy hats, and practical shoes, the wheels of commerce churned, albeit slowly, yesterday, causing downtown garages to fill to near-capacity and creating some hardship for cleanup crews. Menino said he was surprised and a bit dismayed at how many cars he saw inching through the streets of downtown Boston yesterday.

"The roadways are much narrower now than they were last week; give us that opportunity to widen the streets," said Menino, who pointed out that another storm is forecast for tomorrow, threatening to further clog passageways.

But whether they braved the roadways or public transportation, many New Englanders said a combination of fair warning, weekend snowfalls, and early plowing made it easy to head to the office. Lawyer Matthew Kiefer, who cross-country skied down Washington Street in Jamaica Plain on Sunday, thought nothing about setting off yesterday for his Atlantic Avenue law office, where he figured it was 80 percent staffed.

"People have a certain sense of not wanting to be defeated by the weather," he said. "A certain sense of hardiness, of 'We're New Englanders. We face this all the time.' "

Schools across the region were closed, and many communities -- including Boston, Salem, Revere, Cambridge, and Lynn -- canceled school again today to give crews time to clear all of the streets. In Boston, city workers prepared six snow farms where they could dump snow trucked from schools and other sites.

But for every story of a closure and collapse, it seemed that someone stayed open for business. Wayland School Superintendent Gary Burton refused to cancel classes for his 3,000 students yesterday, citing a long tradition of staying open on snow days. The most recent closure, for a storm on Jan. 6, was the first closing in four years.

Burton said that the streets, stairs, and schoolyards were clear and that it was safe enough to open schools, but he took some heat for his decision. By midday the calls were running 60 percent to 40 percent against him. Teachers teased him at lunchtime, and a student scolded him for keeping kids from playing in the snow.

"I'm not the most popular person in the world, but superintendents seldom are," Burton said yesterday.

Then there was the work of shoveling, which left many residents cursing their lot yesterday. In Dorchester, Charlie Hodges, 48, and Jimmy Poland, 74, worked to dig out their cars, buried in drifts that covered the doors.

"This is probably the worst that I can remember," said Hodges, bundled in a parka and a rabbit-hair cap with built-in earflaps.

Poland straightened up and leaned on his shovel, as he worked on his wife's car, still half-buried in the snow. "What I think of it, you couldn't print," said Poland, half joking. "And there's more coming on Wednesday."

The National Weather Service in Taunton is predicting 3 to 5 inches of snow tomorrow, possibly starting in the morning and continuing through the afternoon. Temperatures are expected to stay below freezing through the week, though they could rise to 30 degrees in Boston today.

Those who took public transportation to work found it wasn't always easy. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority was plagued by problems, with nearly every subway and commuter rail line facing equipment breakdowns throughout the day.

Libby De Vecchi, a public relations worker, took a train and a bus to get to her Downtown Crossing office, but the 20-minute commute took nearly an hour. Delays on the Red Line left a line of shivering people seven deep. Finally, they gave up and trudged up the stairs to catch the bus.

"We let our riders down, and I'm extremely disappointed," said MBTA General Manager Michael H. Mulhern. "Despite the governor and the mayor's call for people to stay home and businesses to remain closed, the MBTA did see much higher ridership than we would have expected. In a way it's a backhanded compliment to the system. But the fact is that we battled the storm for 48 hours and it took its toll on the equipment and it took its toll on MBTA personnel."

Some people, many of them parents, took rare days at home, and found themselves amazed by the experience.

Pam Gray-Bennett gazed out her Marshfield window at the North River yesterday and chuckled as a seagull struggled to fly into the wind. She thought the towering snowdrifts that jammed her driveway made it seem that her house was on a hill.

"I don't stop enough to look," said Gray-Bennett, 58, as she tapped out e-mails and answered phone calls from home instead of commuting to Bedford, where she is director of the commission on public secondary schools for the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. "And it's really stunningly beautiful where I am now."

Barring an unforeseen wallop from tomorrow's storm, the break won't last forever.

For state workers, who were urged to stay home yesterday, it's already coming to an end. Yesterday afternoon, a new message came from Governor Mitt Romney: You're back to work.

Maria Sacchetti, Mac Daniel, John Ellement, and Justin Aucoin of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Material from the Associated Press and State House News Service also was used.