Welcome back, snow. We've been expecting you - with everything from brine-covered roads to "shoe grippers" to four-wheel-drive vehicles that can ferry doctors and nurses to area hospitals.

With up to 2 feet of snow in the forecast, the Baltimore region was bustling Thursday with pre-storm preparations.

People, as they always do, bought shovels and snowblowers and raided supermarkets. At least one entrepreneurial-minded man got himself a plow-mounted four-wheeler to earn extra money.

Some businesses went ahead and announced they would be closed today, while the federal government urged its agencies to let employees work from home.

Across Maryland, crews coated major roads with ice-melting goop, including a sugar beet molasses mixture in some spots. BGE got ready for power outages, and MARC prepared for an unusual lunchtime rush by adding train capacity.

For Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake, her first day in office featured an update on snow response plans: More than 150 trucks will plow the city's streets and scatter thousands of tons of salt.

As the storm blew toward the region, Gov. Martin O'Malley might have had the best advice of all: "Stay at home if you don't have to go out."

He drives for miles before Garrett's school buses roll

By the time most readers are picking up their newspapers, Ed Wildesen will have been up for hours, scouring his computer for weather forecasts.

Wildesen, director of transportation in the Garrett County school system, is one of the key members of a team that makes the call that 5,000 schoolchildren and their parents are waiting to hear.

So, on a day like today, Wildesen is up by 3 a.m. But this isn't a job that he can do in his pajamas. "I get into the car and go. I will drive probably 30 or 40 miles," he said.

After his road trip, he'll phone colleagues around the county and a forecaster in Pennsylvania who has access to weather radar maps. He will touch base with 10 people before a final decision is made with the superintendent about whether to roll the buses. But he's hoping the snow holds off until evening.

Anne Arundel and St. Mary's counties already have asked the Maryland State Department of Education for a waiver to the requirement that students be in school for 180 days every year. Whether they will get it is unclear. "We really take seriously the 180-day requirement," said Bill Reinhard, a state schools spokesman.

In the meantime, the primary worry for the city schools' chief operating officer, Keith Scroggins, is this: "With a storm of this magnitude, we want to make sure people aren't struggling to get home."

-- Liz Bowie

On Day 2, Rawlings-Blake faces a trial by snowfall

Transportation chief Al Foxx stood up in the crowded Cabinet meeting -- Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake's first as mayor.

"There's a 20 percent chance of 20 inches or more," he said in a low, rumbling voice. The agency heads erupted into a chorus of gasps and moans.

"Say that again!" said Rawlings-Blake, who had been sworn in as mayor just hours before.

Asnowstorm always seems to throw Baltimoreans in a panic. No one feels the burden as acutely as the mayor, who is ultimately responsible for everything from clearing the streets to keeping residents safe.

The snow will be Rawlings-Blake's first challenge in office, just as it was for Clarence Du Burns in 1986 when he was sworn in as mayor after William Donald Schaefer became governor.

The city's emergency operation center is set to open at 11 a.m. today, director Bob Maloney said at the meeting. More than 150 vehicles will plow the city's streets and scatter salt. The city has 5,800 tons of salt on hand and is expecting a shipment of more than 7,000 additional tons. Employees who have city-owned SUVs are being asked to return them so they will be available for firefighters and police officers, Maloney said.

-- Julie Scharper

Hoping for a normal trip to work, and early return

Snow or no snow, Len Sipes is planning to make his usual train journey this morning from Martin State Airport to Washington and be at his desk by 8:30 a.m. "The federal government is open. I report," said Sipes, press spokesman for a federal agency.

Sipes said he's prepared to stay as long as his agency needs him, but he's hoping it won't need him too long. He'd like to catch the 12:20 p.m. Penn Line train out of Union Station, though he's expecting a madhouse as federal workers make an early exodus.

"Images of trains in India come to mind," he said. "I'm not sure if MARC allows you to sit atop the trains." MARC is preparing for a rush by adding seating capacity to its 12:20 p.m. train and switching a late Camden Line train to an earlier starting time.

The federal government urged agencies Thursday to let employees who can work from home do so. It put into effect policies allowing workers to take leave who had not previously scheduled it.

Sipes said he thinks many will take the government up on any breaks it offers. "I would suspect that most people plan on vacating the District by noon" today, he said.

-- Michael Dresser

Groceries, snow equipment fly out retailers' doors

Jittery shoppers were crowding grocery and hardware stores early Thursday, stocking up on food and anything that would make it easier to clear their driveways and sidewalks.

The area's Home Depot stores have been shipping in snow shovels, snowblowers and other items from stores in New England to keep up with the demand.

Jim Emge, district manager of the Baltimore-area stores, said snowblowers are especially popular: People's backs and spirits might not able to bear yet again digging out of mounds of snow with an old-fashioned shovel.

"As soon as they come in the back door, they go right out the front door," Emge said about the demand for snowblowers.

Safeway said it ran out of shovels after the big storm in December but that it has been getting in extra shipments of other storm essentials like bread, milk and snow melt.

"People are trying to get everything they need before they get snowed in," said Safeway spokesman Craig Muckle.

Giant Food has also added truck drivers and increased shipments to its stores, something it will continue through Friday.

"We're in full mode right now," said Giant spokesman Jamie Miller.

-- Andrea K. Walker

Ice-retardant brine and sugar beet molasses

State roads have been drenched in ice-melting chemicals, and as today dawns, the workers who operate Maryland's snowplows should have had a good night's rest to prepare for a sleep-deprived weekend. By late morning, the plows should be in position to jump into action if and when the flakes -- 18 to 24 inches, if you believe forecasters -- begin to fall.

State Highway Administration spokeswoman Valerie Burnette Edgar said road crews in most of the state spent Thursday applying salt brine intended to slow freezing on the roads. Howard and Frederick counties are conducting a pilot program that is testing a sugar beet molasses mixture as a more environmentally friendly way of staving off snow and ice.

By early Friday, the state's top transportation officials will converge on the SHA operations center near BWI Marshall Airport to set up a unified command post for roads and transit systems.

Gov. Martin O'Malley issued a plea to motorists: "When the snow begins, stay at home if you don't have to go out. By doing so, you stay safe and our crews are better able to clear the snow when there are fewer cars on the road."

-- Michael Dresser

'All about the money' for those with shovels, plows

Kenneth McCullough got the itch to buy a snowplow months ago, acting on a hunch that this winter would be a nasty one. Money, McCullough anticipated, would be there to be made.

Turns out McCullough's gut was right. He is prepping for this weekend's snow as if he is a participant in Sunday's Super Bowl.

"I'm going to get a good eight hours' sleep, then get up at 5 a.m. [Saturday] and get started," said McCullough, 39, who lives in Reisterstown and plans to canvass Baltimore County for jobs. "I like the snow and generally get excited when it comes. But right now, though, it's all about the money situation."

McCullough was one of several entrepreneurs who had posted online ads by midafternoon Thursday looking to plow driveways, sidewalks, parking lots and whatever else needs snow removal. Posters were carving out their territories. Jason Freud, in his third year of removing snow on the side, is narrowing in on Harford County and Eastern Baltimore County.

Freud, 25, a full-time firefighter, said work kept him from making side money during the December snow, but he is off this weekend. "The four-wheeler," Freud said, "is fired up and ready to go."

--Brent Jones

BGE workers on standby in case of disruptions

The impending snowstorm is leading BGE to prepare for potential power outages by putting employees on standby for field and office assignments.

Nearly all BGE employees, in addition to their regular work duties, have alternate assignments during a major incident that could involve disruption of service for Baltimore-area residents, according to Linda Foy, a BGE spokeswoman.

For instance, BGE workers who work in an office might be assigned to act as "patrollers" who drive into affected neighborhoods and do an early assessment of potential problems. If a problem is serious, they can request additional resources from the company, Foy said. Other assignments could include being assigned to help staff a call center to manage increases in customer service requests, she said.

"There's special training for storm assignments," said Foy. "Even engineers who work on the electrical distribution system can shift into a job to help address outages."

While all 3,000 employees can be put on standby, Foy said she didn't know how many might be called on to help out in the expected snowstorm, but it could be as high as several hundred.

"Depending on the severity of the storm, you may need to fill your storm position," Foy said about BGE workers.

--Gus G. Sentementes

Organizations prepare to shorten hours or close

W.R. Grace and Co. handed out hundreds of snow scrapers to employees last winter, and this year put out "shoe grippers" at its office entryways. Both the scrapers and the grippers, which slide over shoes, will likely be put to good use today.

Like many big employers around the Baltimore area, the Columbia-based maker of chemicals and sealants was monitoring storm forecasts Thursday and preparing to shut down if the snow starts in the middle of today, as predicted.

"We're encouraging folks to take laptops home in case the storm arrives sooner than forecasters are predicting," said Andrea Greenan, a Grace spokeswoman. "Then they can stay in touch remotely."

The Social Security Administration, which employs 12,000 in Woodlawn, and Fort Meade, where some 35,000 people work, were among other big employers waiting and watching before deciding whether to tell employees to stay home or leave early. Catholic Relief Services decided Thursday to close its downtown Baltimore headquarters today.

Fort Meade would close "if we get some accumulation and it looks like it's dangerous to drive," said Mary Doyle, a Fort Meade spokeswoman. "Then we start shutting things down: the gym, the bowling alley and the PX."

--Lorraine Mirabella

Baltimore-area hospitals set to cope with hotel reservations, 4-wheel-drive vehicles

Administrators at Baltimore-area hospitals were bracing Thursday for the weekend's expected snowstorm by fine-tuning contingency plans, jump-starting emergency command centers and making sleeping arrangements for critical staff, from hotel reservations to outfitting hospital units with free beds. "We want our patients and family and friends to know that we have made preparations to be fully staffed and to take excellent care of our patients in spite of what the weather brings," said Ellen Beth Levitt, a spokeswoman at the University of Maryland Medical Center. Greater Baltimore Medical Center, Anne Arundel Medical Center and the University of Maryland Medical Center have volunteers with four-wheel-drive vehicles on hand to drive people to work if they can't make it on their own. During December's storm, GBMC used its emergency command unit to notify the National Guard to have a Humvee pick up nurses who lived in rural Harford County and take them to the Towson hospital, said Michael Schwartzberg, a GBMC spokesman. Hospital administrators said they made improvements after December's record-setting storm. "We are reaching out more broadly to the medical staff earlier," said Herbert C. Buchanan Jr., chief operating officer for the University of Maryland Medical Center. "We have tightened up the processes."

--Kelly Brewington

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