Photo by Tony DeFilippo

Good morning, Washington. Do you see that thick gray cloud hanging over the city? That, friends, is the architect of our destruction. As predicted, last night’s grocery store panic erupted in epic proportions all over the metro area. Lines to get into parking lots caused traffic backups, shortages of staples like meat, bread, milk and toilet paper were prevalent, and the P Street Whole Foods decided to close 30 minutes earlier even than it had originally planned, causing one woman, according to Borderstan, to scream, “Let me in, let me in. I don’t have any coffee at home!” We’ll be posting a set of photos later on from various grocery stores visited by DCist operatives last night. It wasn’t pretty.

What You Need to Snow: D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty has declared a snow emergency starting at 9:30 a.m. A snow emergency means that vehicles parked along snow emergency routes (download a list of those routes here) will be ticketed and towed, and that taxi drivers are allowed to charge an extra 25 percent above normal rates.

D.C. government offices opened on time this morning, but are set to close at 2 p.m. D.C. Public Schools are operating on a half-day schedule and will dismiss at noon. The D.C. government will be closed completely on Saturday, so that means things like libraries, parks facilities, and DMV offices will not be open. Essential employees like emergency responders still have to report to work, however.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management has also announced that the federal government will be closing early now, with a planned 4 hour early dismissal in effect. Federal employees (and presumably, all the firms that operate on the same schedule) should be dismissed 4 hours earlier than their normal departure time from work.

Remember, the Winter Storm Warning is in effect from 10 a.m. today until 10 p.m. on Saturday. We’re still looking at between 18 and 24 inches, and the Capital Weather Gang says it could very well be historic.

Briefly Noted: Most flights and trains are being canceled … Fenty seeks to modernize D.C. purchasing rules … NTSB extends hearings into Metro to three days … Hardy students fight to keep their principal.

This Day in DCist: Last year the commonwealth of Virignia had finally agreed on a way forward to enact a statewide smoking ban.