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Mayor Muriel Bowser and other city officials issued a series of serious warnings at a press conference this morning, telling Washingtonians that they should be sheltering in place by 3 p.m. today.

“This storm has life and death implications,” Bower said, a sentiment echoed by the director of Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency Director Christopher Geldart.

“We’ll be fighting mother nature for more than 36 hours,” Geldart said, reiterating the magnitude of this snow storm in terms of 2010’s “Snowmageddon.” That event was actually three separate storms, he said, whereas this “is all of Snowmageddon in a single day”—with the addition of 50 mile per hour winds.

Geldart said that the agency highly encouraged the NHL and NBA to cancel their games (but “if the team wants to put players in danger, it’s their decision”), and for organizers of the March for Life to cancel the march.

“These are blizzard conditions and even passing through streets will be difficult for our first responders,” Bowser said. “We want everybody to look out for them.”

With the snow emergency in effect as of 9:30 a.m., officials reminded residents to ensure their parked cars aren’t on any snow routes—and strongly recommended staying off the roads entirely.

“This is not an inch of snow, this is not an 8-inch storm. We’re talking about an excess of 2.5 feet of snow—heavy snow,” Geldart said. “We’re looking at power outages, the potential for roof collapses. These are the kinds of things we need to be able to respond to.”

He told residents to make sure they’re prepared with 72 hours of food and water, a flashlight, and a battery-operated radio. Geldart also said not to use candles, if possible, to avoid a fire; to keep alternative heating sources away from anything flammable; and to make sure that generators are outside, so carbon dioxide isn’t an issue.

People who were planning to go out sledding or snowball fight-ing were highly encouraged to wait until Sunday. “There’s no reason to be outside during this storm,” Bowser said.

Said Geldart: “We are going to be dealing with snow for the next week. That’s just the nature of what we have.”

When a reporter asked if the dire response is an overreaction, Bowser responded with visible irritation: “I don’t even know how to answer that question. We have a forecast we haven’t had in 90 years.”