The Northeast was pummeled by a blizzard Tuesday, bringing things to a halt for many in Boston and around the region. All flights in and out of Logan Airport were canceled and Amtrak suspended train service between Boston and New York City until Wednesday. It's the third major winter storm to hit the region in two weeks, and knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of customers.
Many people, if they could, stayed home from work and hunkered down — except for some, like Bill Coppinger in South Boston.
"Heading to the liquor store," Coppinger said with a laugh. "Trying to keep warm!"
Down the street, Linda Shen walked her dog, Willy, who didn't look too happy. "He doesn't stay out very long in this snow," she said. So far, Shen hasn't lost power in this blizzard or the two prior storms this month. She says her daughter, who lives west of Boston in Marlborough, lost electricity in the last one. "One of her kids accused her of turning the power off because of the video games."
In general, this winter has not been nearly as bad as that of 2015, when there seemed to be a blizzard every week. Shen says this kind of thing is to be expected — in February.
"March, you sort of expect maybe a little awful, but not all this awful," she said. "If it snows in April, then I'm moving, I don't know," she said, laughing.
Gary Elliott began driving a large snow plow at midnight, retracing his route through the streets of South Boston over and over. Each time, there was a couple more inches.
"I've seen accidents. I've been seeing people sliding," he said. "People can't really walk. Nobody can really see. I mean, [the snow] freezes on the windshield. You've got to hop out clean it off."
There's been some coastal flooding, but thankfully not nearly as much as the storms earlier this month. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker said one of his chief concerns is all the power outages. "As soon as the snow stops and the wind stops blowing, we'll be pushing the utilities to give people a sense about when the power will be back on," Baker said. "I would say that over the course of the past 10 days, utilities have restored 750,000 homes and businesses that were without power."
Eversource said it activated its emergency response plan on March 2, and it's still in effect. Those line crews, like a lot of New Englanders, are probably growing weary from what is turning out to be a very wintry March.
