Grocery stores were bustling and parking lots were packed Monday as residents stocked up on essentials for a late-season snowstorm anticipated to bring up to a foot of snow to coastal Connecticut and shut down travel across the state.

At ShopRite in New London, a crowd of customers lined up at cash registers pushing shopping carts — some filled to the top — with milk, bread, bottled water, meat and bags of pretzels. Customers hurried through the store with shopping lists and grabbed last-minute items before the snowfall.

Sherry White of Ledyard, who regularly shops at the New London store, was stocking up Monday afternoon on milk, peanut butter, coffee, and cans of tuna and ravioli.

"You've got to get stuff you can have immediately in case the power goes off," she said about her shopping strategy.

If her refrigerator stopped working during the storm, her plan was to store her food outside in the snow to stay cold, she said.

As residents prepared Monday afternoon, local officials made their own preparations to close schools and town halls across the region. They also announced that parking bans are in place and trash pickup delayed. 

With white-out conditions expected for part of the storm, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy declared a state of civil preparedness emergency and issued a statewide travel ban effective 5 a.m. Tuesday. The state's Emergency Operations Center was slated to be activated early Tuesday and nonessential first and second shift state employees were told to stay home from work Tuesday.

"With snow coming down at rates in excess of three to four inches per hour at points and winds reaching as much at 60 miles per hour, white-out conditions will severely limit visibility," Malloy said in a statement. "Residents are urged to make safety a priority and to not make any attempt to travel.”

In southeastern Connecticut, 7 to 12 inches were predicted along the coast and 10 to 16 inches through interior parts of the region, said Gary Lessor, meteorologist and the assistant director of The Weather Center at Western Connecticut State University.

Snow is expected to begin falling between 7 and 10 a.m. Tuesday and begin to mix with sleet around 1 p.m. in coastal areas, said Lessor.

By 2 p.m. Tuesday, precipitation was forecast to turn to sleet in both coastal and inland areas and could even turn to rain along the immediate coastline. The storm would transition back to snow in the evening and taper off between 7 and 9 p.m., he said.

There will be minor to moderate coastal flooding at high tide and scattered power outages, he said.

Winds are expected to be between 25 and 35 mph. Gusts could reach as high as 70 mph with most gusts between 45 and 55 mph, he said.

"Winds are going to be brutal," Lessor said.

Tuesday's high temperatures for the shoreline will be between 35 and 40 degrees, with lows near 20s. Inland New London County will see high temperatures in the low to mid 30s and lows near 20s.

State Department of Transportation spokesman Kevin Nursick said Monday afternoon the massive statewide storm will mean aggressive snow accumulation of 3 to 4 inches per hour with 50 mph wind gusts and virtually no visibility.

The DOT said it's critical that the motorists stay off the roads so the department can work to clear the roads.

"Conditions tomorrow during the storm are going to be treacherous," he said Monday afternoon. "No one should be traveling on the roads tomorrow unless it’s an emergency."

The department was working Monday to pre-treat highways and parts of secondary state roads to help roads get down to bare pavement faster when the storm subsides. Nursick expects 634 state trucks and 250 contracted vehicles will be out on the roads Tuesday, along with 15 industrial snow blowers toward the end of the storm.

In the region, Tuesday's referendum on the elementary schools project in East Lyme was canceled and slated to be rescheduled for a later date.

Electric Boat announced on Twitter that the first shift on Tuesday has been canceled at all Connecticut and Rhode Island locations. The company said employees should monitor local media for an announcement regarding the second shift.

Most offsite outpatient services affiliated with Lawrence + Memorial Hospital, The Westerly Hospital and The William W. Backus Hospital will be closed Tuesday.

At Backus, all primary care, urgent care and special care offices are closed, and elective surgeries at the main hospital in Norwich have been rescheduled, spokesman Steve Coates said.

At L+M and Westerly, all affiliated physicians’ offices and other outpatient service offices are closed, including the Cancer Center in Waterford, spokesman Mike O’Farrell said. The Pequot Health Center’s emergency department in Groton, however, will remain open.

Elective surgeries at the main hospital in New London will proceed, but outpatient procedures at Pequot Health Center are postponed, O’Farrell said.

Patients are urged to call before coming to appointments scheduled for Wednesday in case of late openings.

Eversource reminded its customers on Monday that they could sign up for outage alerts on its website. They can also report outages on the website or by calling (800) 286-2000. The company said downed wires and emergencies should be reported by calling 911.

Norwich Public Utilities announced steps it was taking to prepare for the storm, including that two additional tree crews will be available and that it plans to activate its Emergency Operations Center Tuesday morning.

Back at Montville TrueValue Hardware on Monday, customers were buying snow shovels, ice melt, flashlights and batteries, and propane. The store had about two to three times the number of customers he would see on a typical day, said owner Shaun Tine.

For the mid-March storm, the store's snow shovels and wood pellets were on display near shelves stocked with bags of fertilizer and pastel-colored watering cans for the upcoming spring season.

Tine said the store had already switched over spring, but with news of the impending snowstorm, the store brought back out the salt, wood pellets, and coal and other items that it stores year-round. One customer had a broken snow blower belt, but thought he wouldn't need to fix it until next year. He ended up returning to the store to buy a replacement belt — and a spare.

"A month ago I was selling grass seed like it was going out of style," Tine added.

Day Staff Writer Judy Benson contributed to this article.  

k.drelich@theday.com