WASHINGTON, Jan 12 (AFP - NT) - The eastern United States braced for a new snow storm on Friday, as weary residents in various states were still digging out from a record-setting blizzard that has already killed at least 80 people. While not as severe as the record-setting blizzard that dumped more than 75 centimeters (30 inches) of snow in some areas last weekend, the new storm will further strain cleaning crews and likely raise the death toll. Major cities such as Washington, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, New York City, and Boston, Massachusetts are expected to accumulate from 10 to 20 centimeters (4-8 inches) of snow over a period of 12 hours. The new snow will be added to knee-deep amounts that fell over the past weekend, prompting several states to declare a state of emergency and seek federal government for disaster assistance. President Bill Clinton told a news conference Thursday that the federal government was acting to help "millions of people along the east coast who are stranded and afflicted by the blizzard of 96." The economic impact of what has been dubbed the Blizzard of '96 is being calculated in the billions of dollars, analysts say. Insured property losses alone in the 10-state region will likely top one billion dollars, according to Carolyn Gorman, spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute. Mark Zandi, chief economist of Regional Financial Associates told AFP the lost economic impact will be about 1.5 billion dollars, which he said was relatively small for the region whose annual output is some 1.6 trillion dollars. "Construction trades have completely stopped, the transportation industry, distribution, retailing and wholesaling have had big disruptions," he said. "But a lot will be made up in subsequent weeks." Zandi said the impact is far from disasters such as the Los Angeles earthquake or Hurricane Andrew, which cost some 25 billion dollars in output. AFP /AA1234/120853 GMT JAN 96

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