It was a little more than a snowstorm...

As I begin this blog it's 10:32 pm on Friday February 8, 2013. At this point there is about a foot of snow on the ground. I will not finish writing this tonight. Hey I do have to sleep. Work on Friday was as expected. Very busy! At least this time people had a legitimate excuse to panic. People stock up if 6" of snow is predicted. I think this stems from 1978. They overreacted because that storm dropped 27"  on top of two previous large snowstorms. It was a gigantic mess with cars stranded on major highways. 100 people died. This storm may or may not top 27' but around here we will still get around 2' some places 3'. This is a blizzard. Sort of snowstorm combined with a hurricane. Winds are gusting to about 60 mph as I write this. There are about 250,000 homes without power in Massachusetts. The governor declared that all vehicles except plows, emergency vehicles and news media, off all roads by 4 pm this afternoon. Controversial to some, but as far as I'm concerned it was a smart decision. At 10:56 we just had a wind gust of 76 mph in Boston. 
Here's a shot from the parking lot of the store where I work at about 10 am this morning. It had just begun to snow.


10 am

  The penalty for being caught driving is a $500 and up to 1 year in jail. That sounds pretty extreme, not the fine but the possible jail sentence. Still it seems to have worked. It should be over some time tomorrow afternoon.

It is now 11:13 and I  just heard on the news that there are now 300,000 homes without power.

I left work at about 2 pm and the place was still hopping. Here's a picture of my car in the driveway at about 2:30.

Several hours later.

Here's a video made with a 5 mega pixel camera aimed a the television of some of the storm coverage Friday night.

 

Fast forward. At this moment it's about 5:15 on Saturday. All the shoveling is done. I didn't do it myself. I had help. My landlord has a snow blower but as we got closer to the street the snow was more compacted due to the constant plowing. That was the toughest part of the whole endeavour. I didn't time the whole thing but it must of taken 6 or 7 hours. Locally we got about 28 " of snow. A couple of inches more than Boston about 5 miles away.

This was  about 9 am this morning just outside my door.

 

 At this point it's early Saturday evening. I am tired and sore. Legs, back and arms. Apart from that I feel pretty good. It was quite a workout. I made pasta primavera for supper or at least my version of it.
Here are the results of all our hard work.

  

OK. We didn't shovel the street.

People along the coastline south of Boston really got hit hard. The ocean was very angry. That's part of the price you pay for living across the street from the ocean.

So that about wraps things up from here. We don't always get the most snow, but due to the location, these wild scenarios happen from time to time. Last year we only got a few inches of snow all winter. I suppose this could happen again. Unlike the other states affected, our Governor ordered a ban on all driving and it was a wise decision. The ban is now lifted but I'm not going anywhere anytime soon.
That's it. Over and out.
I'm outta here.