Causes power outages, flooding, canceled flights but mostly spares Boston
A nor’easter battered southern New England on Tuesday, snarling commutes, knocking out power in some areas and causing coastal flooding in others, and dumping several inches of snow in parts of Worcester County and Rhode Island, while sparing much of Greater Boston from any significant accumulation.
A few communities in Connecticut were buried with more than a foot of snow, while parts of Central and Southeastern Massachusetts were blanketed with more than a half-foot. Foster, R.I., reported 10 inches of snow. Boston saw a negligible amount of snow as of the mid-afternoon, but the storm canceled more than 220 flights from Logan International Airport.
On the Massachusetts coast, the stretch of road that connects the Scituate Lighthouse to the mainland was covered by several inches of water shortly before 1 p.m. Farther south, on Nantucket, parts of Easy Street, near the island’s harbor, were also submerged. Coastal flooding was also reported north and east of Boston, in Winthrop and Revere.
With high tide due at 2:12 a.m. Wednesday, officials were closely monitoring the shoreline.
A coastal flood advisory will be in effect from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. Wednesday in Eastern Massachusetts, including the Cape and Islands, according to the National Weather Service.
The state Department of Conservation and Recreation said Hull Shore Drive Extension remained closed through Tuesday night but is expected to reopen Wednesday. Winthrop Parkway in Revere reopened after an hourslong closure, but could close again due to high tides overnight, an agency spokesperson said.
The storm also created treacherous road conditions in Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts, snarling the commutes for many.
By late evening, more than 17,000 electric customers were without power across Massachusetts. The outages were concentrated on the Cape, with about 7, 000 of those located in Barn
stable, according to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency’s online outage map.
In Rhode Island, fewer than 100 customers were without power as of Tuesday night, according to utility companies.
The Rhode Island Blood Center, meanwhile, issued an urgent call for donors Tuesday, after the snowstorm resulted in the closure of all donor centers and cancellation of all mobile drives, resulting in the loss of nearly 400 donations.
On Nantucket, Kim LaRue, who has lived on the island for nearly six decades, met the storm with a stiff upper lip.
“It’s going to turn to slush,” LaRue said as her hair whipped in the wind. “I never worry about it.”
Jonathan Gulliver, highway administrator at the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, said the storm was shaping up to be lighter than the agency had originally anticipated, but still warned of an overnight freeze on the state’s roads Tuesday night into early Wednesday.
“We expect to see a sharp drop in temperature after this ends. And because this is a very heavy, wet kind of snow, there’s going to be a lot of moisture on the road that’s prone to freezing,” Gulliver said. “So we’re going to keep a lot of our crews on well into tonight.”
Despite the freeze, though, he said the agency expects Wednesday morning’s commute to be “fine.”
Along the coast, residents and businesses left little to chance.
Sandbags sat outside the CVS on Scituate’s Front Street around 9:30 a.m., put out by workers the night before, according to operations manager Edwina Barnes. The parking lot for her South Shore store flooded two weeks earlier, and she was worried about a repeat.
Barnes said the lot often floods during high tide, and the water has, at times, made it into the store.
“It just comes like a little bit, like this,” she said, holding her hand flat an inch or two above the carpeted floor. “But it will come all the way across the front of the store and then down the first couple aisles.”
She added, “I’m actually really scared” about Tuesday’s storm.
Predictions of the worst storm in years fell flat Tuesday for many communities in Massachusetts. Boston and its immediate neighbors were spared the brunt of Mother Nature’s wrath. A steady rain fell in those areas throughout the morning, switching to a wet snow shortly before 11 a.m. But as of mid-afternoon, the snow had yet to stick to the pavement. Just across the Charles River from Boston, in Cambridge, a row of plow trucks sat on Broadway, waiting to be deployed.
For cities such as Boston and Somerville, the attitude Tuesday seemed to be: It could’ve been a lot worse. Both communities lifted their snow emergencies. Boston lifted its parking ban at 4 p.m., Mayor Michelle Wu’s office said.
Earlier in the week, in anticipation of significant snowfall, Wu had spoken about the city’s rules regarding space savers. But it ended up being a moot discussion, as there was not enough snow to shovel. Heated disagreements over chairs and cones marking a cleared-out parking space will have to wait for another day.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, meanwhile, urged people to stay off the roads and work from home if possible during the storm. More than 180 school districts, colleges, and universities in the state canceled classes for the day in anticipation of a serious blizzard.
Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee announced that state offices would be closed on Tuesday due to the weather. He tweeted at around 7 a.m. “strongly urging” Rhode Islanders to stay off the road.
“Let the plows do their jobs,” he wrote. “Be safe.”