Massachusetts is under a state of emergency, but that isn’t stopping essential workers from braving whiteout conditions and hurricane-force winds today.
A powerful Nor’easter is expected to blanket the region with up to 2 feet of snow. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu has urged all residents to stay home if possible. Flights and Amtrak trains have largely ground to a halt, and hundreds of thousands of households have lost power.
Early this morning, though, hundreds of doctors, nurses and other medical professionals still trudged through the dense snow in Boston’s South End as they made their way to Boston Medical Center for shifts at New England’s largest safety-net hospital.
“It’s part of the deal,” general surgery resident Colton Yahn told GBH News as he finished an overnight shift. “But we love what we do, so we’ve got to do what we can to get into work and get home safely.”
Adriana, a labor and delivery nurse at BMC who asked not to share her last name, said the hospital is actively trying to make the commute easier for workers.
“They put us up in hotels if we want, especially if we’re coming back [for another shift] the next night,” she said. “I just don’t want to be driving.”
The blizzard’s wet snow and powerful winds have led to power outages in hundreds of thousands of Eastern Massachusetts homes, mostly across Eastern Massachusetts and Cape Cod.
“This is a slow-moving, long-duration nor’easter, and it’s continuing to hit parts of Massachusetts with blizzard conditions, heavy snow, strong winds and very hazardous driving,” said Olessa Stepanova, a spokesperson for Eversource.
Stepanova said the utility company prepared for the storm, and there are hundreds of crews already working to restore power. But with wind gusts reaching 77 miles per hour in some areas — on top of the drifting snow, poor visibility and limited travel conditions — she says there are limits to where crews can safely travel.
“Crews can’t go up in bucket trucks when the winds are this high, so we are restoring power remotely where we can,” she said.
If an Eversource customer has lost power, Stepanova urged them to call in and report it.
Scituate town officials warn that power will likely be out for multiple days because the winds are too powerful for utilities crews to repair the downed power lines.
State and local officials are telling residents to stay off the roads and take public transit if travel is necessary. The MBTA is running on a limited schedule. The agency said to expect significant delays. Amtrak cancelled dozens of trains throughout the Northeast, including several traveling to and from Boston.
At Logan Airport, airlines have cancelled nearly 1,000 flights in and out of Boston, according to the flight tracking service FlightAware. As of 9:30 a.m., 92% of flights out of Logan were cancelled, and 86% of flights set to land at the airport were cancelled. The airport is urging travelers to contact their airlines and check the status of flights before attempting to travel to Logan.
State leaders warned of rapid snowfall ahead of the storm, with snow expected to accumulate at a rate of 2 or more inches per hour. They also said that wind gusts could reach up to 70 miles per hour, with the fastest winds hitting the Cape and Islands.
Gov. Maura Healey has deployed 200 National Guard members to help respond to the storm.
