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Steve Chiotakis: Back to back snowstorms have made for a miserable time of it for residents along the Eastern seaboard. In the nation’s capitol, the Federal government’s shut down for a fourth day. Businesses and schools are closed, too. But Marketplace’s John Dimsdale found the snow has produced activity of another sort.

John Dimsdale: Cab rides to the airport have been running as high as 150 bucks, and neighborhood Web sites are full of people desperately seeking snow shovels.

At the Tru-Valu hardware store downtown, salesman Drew Sutter says his shovel inventory is but a fleeting memory.

Drew Sutter: As soon as we unloaded it, our delivery of shovels from yesteday was sold in about an hour. Today we had snow shovels for about an hour and 15 minutes.

Several eager truck owners are getting into the snow-plowing services. In the Virginia suburbs, Ketkeo Sisouphonh is a welder advertising plowing on local Web sites.

Ketkeo Sisouphonh: A lot of people call. A lot of people want a snow plow.

Sisouphonh says there’s so much snow on long driveways that he gets stuck a lot — so he charges $400 to $500 per job.

Sisouphonh: But they say, whoa! Too much, you know.

So he’s only had a couple takers — although I might be one of them if I can’t dig myself out today.

In snowy Washington, I’m John Dimsdale for Marketplace.