The Nasty Nor'easter

EARLY AMERICANS LIVED IN FEAR OF A NOR'EASTER howling in from the Atlantic. Modern Americans see nature as well under control and react with indignation when it is unchained. So it was last week, with holiday schedules busy and tempers already frayed, as one of the fiercest storms of the century hit the East Coast. Record coastal floods and snowfalls -- nearly 3 ft. in parts of West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts -- resulted when a 170-m.p.h. jet stream collided with a storm that had caused tornadoes in California, then skimmed along the Gulf Coast and out to sea before doubling lethally back. Though it was no Hurricane Andrew, at least a dozen people were killed and many thousands evacuated -- some from flooded rail stations and Wall Street lobbies. Hundreds of thousands lost power. Among the pervasive damage: windows sucked out of New York City skyscrapers and a century-old fishing pier swept away in Ocean Grove, New Jersey.