Snowstorm Saves Its Fury for New England, Bringing High Winds ...
New York Times-12 minutes ago
Officials said they began receiving requests for evacuations at 3:45 a.m. as high tide neared; the town declared its own state of emergency at ...
BOSTON — High winds and whiteout conditions swept across New England on Tuesday as a strong winter storm moved up the East Coast, leaving the island of Nantucket without power.
The storm veered away from New York City, leaving less than a foot of snow in Central Park. Hartford also received less than expected, but the storm was barreling down on Boston, where forecasters were still expecting two to three feet.
By 10 a.m., several areas of Massachusetts had reported more than a foot of snow, the Weather Service said, with an unofficial total of 31 inches in Shrewsbury and 27 inches in Ayer.
The town of Scituate, about 30 miles south of Boston on the Atlantic coast, experienced heavy flooding, with a car washing away and floating downtown. Officials said they began receiving requests for evacuations at 3:45 a.m. as high tide neared; the town declared its own state of emergency at 4:55 a.m. and is bracing for the next high tide at 4 p.m.
“The water was up to the top of the stop signs,” said Kim Dami, a secretary for the town’s sewer division, citing reports from her colleagues.
The town was still trying to keep the rest of the roads clear, Ms. Dami said. “A lot of plowing, a lot of clearing, a lot of salt and sanding,” she said.
The good news for much of New England was that the snow was light and fluffy, not the wet, heavy flakes that coagulate on tree limbs and bring down power lines. As of 6 a.m., about 8,000 homes in Massachusetts, most of them on Cape Cod, were without power, but officials expected more power losses to be reported as people woke up.
By 7 a.m., Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts reported that about 15,000 customers had no power. By 9:30, that number had increased to about 25,000.
State officials said that 100 percent of Nantucket was without power and that cell service was down. The island is essentially isolated now as ferry service has been canceled, and no flights can get in or out. So far, 11 residents have been evacuated from flooded areas to shelters.
But over all, there were fewer service interruptions than had been predicted.
States of emergency were in effect across New England, with Maine the last to declare one, early Tuesday morning. “The amount of snow and the high winds, along with blowing and drifting snow, makes this storm dangerous for many Mainers,” Gov. Paul R. LePage said in making the declaration.
Travel bans have not been imposed in Maine or New Hampshire, though speeds on the Maine Turnpike were lowered to 45 miles an hour. Travel bans were in effect in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and most public schools in the region were shut.
Mr. Baker said that essential workers who were driving in Massachusetts were getting out of their cars on Interstate 93 to clean their windshields. “Not a good idea,” the governor said, urging those who needed to clear their windshields to pull off the highways.
Overall, he said, the storm so far was relatively incident-free, though the wind was howling and snow was drifting, making plowing and shoveling pointless.
Peter Gaynor, the head of the Rhode Island Department of Emergency Management, told CNN that the travel ban had allowed the snowplows to keep up with clearing the roads without having to deal with other vehicles.
Raging winds were the worst aspect of the storm, with gusts raking across Nantucket at up to 78 miles an hour. Flooding was reported along coastal areas.
The Boston subway system and commuter rail lines were shut, as was Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor service. Airports were closed in Boston and Portland, Maine. Officials had prepared shelters in Massachusetts for more than 8,500 people, but as of early morning, only 142 had checked in.
Massachusetts state officials used electronic signs on highways to speak to Boston drivers in their native language: “Wicked Big Storm Coming. Pahk Ya Cah!”
In the category of hell-freezes-over, Roger Carroll of The Telegraph of Nashua, in New Hampshire, sent out this Tweet: “Here’s how you know storm is serious: NH is closing liquor stores on Tuesday. #nhpolitics #hellfreezesover”
Gov. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire told New England Cable News that she had closed state government, which she said was an “unusual event” in hardy New Hampshire, because snow was coming down at four inches an hour and visibility was dangerously low. The governor did not order a travel ban, she said, because she did not want law enforcement officials distracted by having to enforce it. By and large, she said, residents were cooperating and staying at home.
Temperatures were much colder than originally forecast, with Boston at 14 degrees and the winds making the air feel like minus 2. But the cold was what made the snow lighter; if it had been warmer, the snow would have been wetter and power losses would have been more extensive.
Snow was forecast to fall through Tuesday night and not taper off until early Wednesday.
“It’s just kind of all white and gray,” Genevieve Hunt, 55, of South Dartmouth, Mass., a town on the state’s south coast, said Monday night.
Referring to wind gusts of up to 60 miles an hour, she added: “It’ll settle down once in a while, but it’s kind of scary when you go to the window and you can’t see what’s going on outside.”
In Providence, nine inches of snow had fallen by 6 a.m., and wind gusts of 43 miles per hour were creating low visibility.
Schools and businesses were closed across the state, and many people whose jobs required them to be at work had been hunkered down at their workplaces since Monday night. Dr. Margaret Van Bree, the president of Rhode Island Hospital and the Hasbro Children’s Hospital, said nurses, doctors, cooks and other workers had slept in the hospital.
“In some conference areas, we have blowup beds, we have cots,” Dr. Van Bree said. Because many patients had canceled elective procedures, she said, some workers would sleep “in some of the recovery beds or on stretchers.”
Dr. Van Bree said she had an air mattress in her office and had brought three changes of clothes to work on Monday.
And Alexandra Weiss, 22, a college student hostess in the restaurant at the Providence Biltmore hotel, said she had been given a free hotel room so she could work at the restaurant on Monday night and do a double shift on Tuesday.
“School’s canceled tomorrow,” said Ms. Weiss, who was happy to earn extra money for her spring break. “I’ve never stayed in the Biltmore.”
In midcoast Maine, the snow started in the early morning. Mainers woke up to strong north winds, heavy snow and single-digit temperatures.
Schools and town offices were closed from Kittery, on the New Hampshire border, to Eastport, on the Canadian border.
For those watching for records, the snowfall level to beat in Boston was 27.5 inches, set 12 years ago over Presidents’ Day weekend. It was the largest snowfall here in a 24-hour period.
Michael Kistner, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Gray, Maine, said that snow was falling at a rate of three to four inches an hour in southeastern New Hampshire and would continue, “probably through the next four to six hours.”
“It’s the jackpot area,” Mr. Kistner said.
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