Oct. 17--STATE COLLEGE -- By Friday morning, the Circleville Road area had, in the words of one local resident, become a "disaster scene."

Thursday's snowfall, which set several records, pulled down trees and power lines at an alarming rate in the Centre Region, sending work crews --municipal, private and those from utilities -- scrambling.

At one point, an estimated 12,000 residents in Centre County were without power as falling trees and tree limbs caused as many as 350 separate outages. Some homes and businesses could remain that way through this evening as crews work to restore power.

"Many of the heavily treed neighborhoods ... have severe tree damage ... some of the secondary roads are closed due to trees that have fallen," said Shawn Kauffman, Centre Region emergency management coordinator.

At 8 a.m., the COG Office of Emergency Management had declared a disaster emergency and asked residents to remain patient.

"There was a lot of activity during the night and it really was not until about 6 this morning that we got a good handle on how much damage there was," Kauffman said. "So the process of removing of debris and restoring power will be lengthy."

By mid-afternoon Friday, most of the area's roads were opened to traffic. Cleanup of the fallen trees, downed power lines and other debris was expected to take some time, however.

Several municipalities said it might not be until next week that the streets are returned to normal.

In the offices of AccuWeather and the National Weather Service, both in State College, meteorologists updated forecast models throughout the day. Their predictions -- more snow Friday night and today, more possible power outages.

"(This) morning, the chances are there will be another couple of inches on the ground," said Andrew Mussoline, a meteorologist at AccuWeather.com. "So, some of the weakened trees may collapse."

The Centre Region appeared

hardest hit. The National Weather Service reported 3.2 inches of snowfall in Philipsburg by 7 a.m. Friday morning. In State College the total at that time was 4.7 inches. In Park Forest it was 6 inches and, at the top of Mount Nittany, 8 inches of accumulation was recorded.

Bill Syrett, manager of the Joel N. Myers Weather Center at Penn State, said it was hard to believe what had happened.

"All of us old forecasters were like: 'No way, (that) doesn't happen here,' " he said Friday around noon. "And while we're talking, it has snowed 27 hours straight ...