So was it a sucker punch, or did New Jersey forget it's almost winter?
As the state recovers from a storm that literally left it paralyzed, transforming major highways into parking lots and turning short commutes into arduous treks that continued long into the night, many questioned why the roads were so bad.
Gov. Phil Murphy said the state had prepared for the storm -- but was caught off guard by the magnitude of it.
"Clearly, we could have done better," Murphy said at a news conference on Friday to address the storm that dumped higher than expected snow totals on much of the state just in time for the evening commute.
But governor put most of the blame on forecasters who underestimated the strength of the storm.
"No one realized the gravity of what was to come," Murphy said.
Department of Transportation Commissioner Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti offered her apologies for her department.
"Clearly I'm accountable for our performance," she said.
The governor said his administration is "looking very hard in the mirror" and will conduct a postmortem to investigate what went wrong.
The Office of Emergency Management activated the state's Emergency Operations Center at 7 Thursday morning to monitor storm conditions, but Murphy said things got significantly worse than expected, far quicker than anticipated.
Administration officials said that the governor's office had been in contact with emergency response personnel from all 21 counties. But late into the night, the stories of those stranded in what initially was forecast as nothing more than a light snowfall grew increasingly desperate.
In Penn Station in Newark, there were people stuck for hours upon hours, with no place to go. The Port Authority bus terminal was basically shut down, and thousands more people were looking for a way home. Everywhere, roads were impassable.
The state Department of Transportation, which bore the brunt of much of the anger from those stuck on unplowed highways, said they put crews on the road a day before the first snowflakes began to fall.
"The DOT brined throughout the state yesterday to pre-treat roadways. The department deployed resources based on the forecast and adjusted as necessary as the forecast worsened," said department spokesman Stephen Schapiro. "I think the storm came in a little harder and quicker than people expected."
Traffic on Rt. 22 East in Bridgewater. (Ed Murray | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com)
The storm was challenging, Schapiro added, because there was more snow than forecasted and the intensity was greater than forecast, making it hard to keep up.
In addition, he said many left work early, and all at the same time, leading to high traffic volume during the afternoon. That, combined with all the disabled vehicles, made it tougher for crews to get roads clear and passable.
"We always plan based on the forecast we get," said the DOT spokesman.
According to Schapiro, the DOT had more than 900 pieces of equipment out on the road, including plows and salt spreaders.
Wherever they were deployed, though, did not seem to make much of a difference statewide. Interstate 287 was at a standstill long into the evening. Interstate 280 was littered with stuck cars and jackknifed tractor-trailers. Sections of Interstate 78 were shut down.
Beyond the state highways, even local road crews seemed to be scarce. The streets in Glen Ridge and Montclair around Hackensack Meridian's Mountainside Medical Center, which need to be kept open for ambulances, went unplowed throughout the afternoon. In Livingston, cars idled for hours on Livingston Avenue, unable to get around other stuck vehicles.
Many people wondered where their local public works crews were. And not a few people noted that a lot of New Jersey's state and local public officials were gathered on Thursday in Atlantic City for the annual League of Municipalities conference.
Newark, the state's largest city, was totally gridlocked, and people took to social describing city streets jammed with cars going the wrong way in a desperate attempt to get somewhere.
And some never made it home last night.
More information about the state's response will be coming later this morning when the governor is expected to give a briefing about the storm and relief efforts.
Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Facebook: @TedSherman.reporter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.