Central Mass. hit with snow, state doing well during blizzard
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The Worcester area has been handling today’s blizzard well, city officials said. But they continued to urge caution after nearly two feet of snow had fallen before 9 a.m.
While officials said there were no power outages and no need to use an established shelter at Worcester Technical High School, they added that the worst of the storm is still not over. The blizzard is expected to dump several more inches of snow, city officials said in a statement, with another 8 to 10 inches expected through the day. The total snowfall for the city could reach three feet.
City Manager Edward Augustus urged people to stay at home. He also said that residents on side streets should not expect those roadways to be cleared until later today at the earliest.
“The public has been great during this storm, staying off the roads and letting the plows do their work as quickly and safely as possible,” Augustus said. “We’re asking people to remain patient while we try to keep the city’s main routes open.”
Meanwhile, Gov. Charlie Baker said the state was weathering the storm well after a "relatively incident-free night."
"I mean, so far so good," Baker said at 7:20 a.m., wrapping up a 15-minute storm update from the state's emergency management bunker in Framingham.
Baker said that there were fewer than 200 people in emergency shelters statewide, "not a lot of road closures," and significantly fewer power outages than expected due to colder temperatures that resulted in lighter, fluffier snow.
"We haven't had any catastrophic issues, life safety issues overnight," said Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency Director Kurt Schwartz.
On Monday, Baker declared a state of emergency and announced that public transportation would be shut down Tuesday, urging residents statewide to hunker down and ride out the storm indoors. The travel ban was being discussed Tuesday morning, with an update expected at Noon, the governor said.
(Material from State House News Service was used in this report.)
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