> I highly doubt many jobs just let people go before the storm and likely many left during not realizing how bad it had got

yup. i work for a vendor and they told us to all be home by noon. i left my store at 11am and it took me an hour to get home, having zero visibility through the 2nd half of my drive. the stores themselves were staying open until 2pm, so all of those people were driving home in absolutely horrible conditions.