Published in the February 10, 2017 edition.
WAKEFIELD — Residents continued to dig out this morning from yesterday’s nor’easter, a quick moving winter storm that dumped about 13 inches of wind-driven snow on Wakefield.
We had all been warned this was coming,
and when the full force of it blew through town yesterday afternoon, motorists and others were close to being momentarily blinded by swirling snow and drifts.
The area is supposed to get up to three more inches of snow tonight and tomorrow and possibly between 7 and 10 inches Sunday night into Monday. So the winter of 2016-17 went from being mild to not so much in a matter of days. Earlier this week, temperatures were in the mid-50s; overnight, they were in the single digits.
According to DPW Director Richard Stinson, that cold air didn’t too anything to help get the town’s streets cleared. When it is too cold, none of the chemicals used to treat roads really works on snow. Instead, the snow tends to become hardpack, making driving tricky and scraping a chore.
The snow yesterday began around 8 a.m. and stayed relatively light until about noon. Then the wind picked up and starting blowing snow all over, “making it tough to see and move around,” Stinson said. He said drifting around the town’s two lakes had crews continuously returning during the day and night to remove snow.
The full snow removal operation includes about 65 pieces of equipment. Every contracted piece was used until about 11 p.m. yesterday. Stinson said that between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. today town crews scraped down streets and salted and sanded them. Stinson said that while temperatures remained frigid today, the sun would help melt snow off Wakefield roads.
A small town crew was on today to deal with any issues that may come up.
For the second straight day, Wakefield schools had no classes Friday.
Fire Chief Michael Sullivan urged residents to help shovel snow away from neighborhood hydrants, particularly with the storms being forecasted for the weekend.
Stinson explained for residents that due to the snow yesterday, the recycling contractor did not pick up recyclables as scheduled. So if you had Thursday pickup, the recyclables were collected today; Friday pickup has been postponed until tomorrow.
The storm dumped a foot or more of snow along the New York-to-Boston corridor, forced the cancellation of schools in cities big and small and grounded thousands of flights.
It came a day after temperatures soared into the 50s and 60s, giving millions of people a taste of spring. But then it was back to reality.
“We were waiting for a good one all year,” said Morgan Crum, a manager at Katz Ace Hardware in Glastonbury, Connecticut, where more than 50 people stopped in to buy shovels, ice melt, gas cans and other storm provisions. “We live in New England. This is what we expect.”
Numerous accidents were reported as drivers dealt with blowing and drifting snow and slippery streets. Stretches of Interstate 95 in Rhode Island were closed in the afternoon after tractor-trailers got stuck.
Dozens of motorists got stranded on New York’s Long Island after they couldn’t make it up icy ramps. Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said snow plow drivers were going to have a “long night” working on icy roads.
Schools in New York City, Philadelphia, Boston and elsewhere called off classes for the day and government offices told non-essential workers to stay home. The mayor of Boston said schools would be closed Friday as well.
Thousands of flights were canceled across the region and planes bound for New York’s Kennedy Airport were ordered held on the ground for hours while crews cleared the runways.
In Rhode Island, they got “thundersnow,” with whiteout conditions accompanied by the rumble of thunder.
“It’s pretty nuts here,” Felecia White said as she and friends hunkered down in a restaurant in Newport, Rhode Island, waiting for the weather to improve. “Even with four-wheel drive, you can’t do anything. You can’t see across the street.”
Some neighborhoods in New York City saw a foot or more of the white stuff. Boston and Providence, Rhode Island, recorded more than 10 inches of snow and East Hartford, Connecticut, saw more than 19 inches.
Farther north, Berwick, Maine, recorded more than 16 inches of snow and Lee, New Hampshire, got 14 inches.
The Associated Press contributed to this reports.
