The warnings prompted hundreds of thousands of residents and vacationeers to head inland, choking roads over the last few days.

What compounds Kennedy's problems is that most of the millions of passengers will also come and go during a brief but frantic period from mid-afternoon to early evening, choking roads inside the airport and throughout much of southeast Queens with cars, buses and limousines.

She is also representing a citizens group in Yonkers that opposes Forest City Ratner's plans to build a $600 million mixed-use development there called Ridge Hill, claiming it would choke already clogged roads.

There is more wildlife here than there is in some of the country's most famous national parks, but the area has somehow been spared the throngs of recreational vehicles and cars that choke roads in and around better-known places.

Motorists headed home early, choking roads as the storm gained strength.

The invasion has driven construction costs to record levels, seduced builders, architects and even carpenters to build houses on "spec," choked roads with commuting workers and encouraged subcontractors to insist on bonuses merely for showing up on time.

Gone are the milelong lines that choked roads, made fistfights part of the Nigerian streetscape and turned gas stations into high-security zones swarming with soldiers, police officers, thugs and the long-suffering ordinary Nigerians, citizens of the world's sixth-largest producer of oil.

The action also choked roads in other parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, including the main highway to Croatia.

They argue that the theme park and other Disney plans would spur so much commercial and residential development that traffic would choke roads, spoil the air quality and overwhelm existing neighborhoods.

The offices are often the pride of their communities, but they remain separate from homes, generating traffic that chokes roads and makes suburban life miserable.