FARMINGVILLE, N.Y. — Lorna Jones decided to brave the blizzard on Friday, venturing onto the Long Island Expressway as the snow began piling up. So did many others here in Suffolk County.

They all came to regret it.

The snow and wind lashed their cars until finally they could drive no farther. And so Ms. Jones and others huddled in their cars all night on the expressway and its exit ramps, scanning the horizon, through ice-caked windows in hopes that plows would reach them.

“It’s terrible. It’s cold. I don’t know how long I’m going to be here,” said Ms. Jones, 62, a nurse who stalled near the town of Brookhaven, less than a mile from her destination. “Are there any plans to help us?”

She said she had slept fitfully in her car, with no food or water, and only a bottle of Listerine next to her on the passenger seat.