<p>Amazingly, the woman who cleans my house showed up at 10 this morning with her daughter. She doesn’t speak English and knew her daughter didn’t have school but didn’t know why. I lent her a shovel and sent her home after explaining that her town has a state of emergency starting at noon.</p>
<p>Just checked Jet Blue and they are now allowing changes with no fee for flights through Sunday and all the flights Monday and later have only one seat available or are sold out. No way I am staying at my sisters longer if I can’t get out by Sunday. I’d rather just rebook later in the month or in March.</p>
<p>Ah, good for you Sue22. Curious, though, how did you explain it to her? Or did you explain it to the daughter?</p>
<p>Our school system (that I teach and live in) sends an automated phone message and an email to notify the population when there is no school.
Who else remembers laying in bed with the am radio on waiting for the dj to go through the entire list of school cancellations? Am I dating myself?</p>
<p>I am grateful to have the day off as I feel like I am coming down with something. I’m camped out on the couch with a pot of soup on the stove.</p>
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<p>I remember those days. We were lucky, though, because our neighbor was a teacher in our district and always called us as soon as she knew which was before it was announced on the radio. My D who is a teacher has a snow day today in Toronto which is very unusual there.</p>
<p>Am I dating myself? - yes you are. When I was in school, it was never cancelled.</p>
<p>Well, surprise, surprise! After hyping this thing for days, the rapidly declining snow projections look like this is going to turn out to be real nothing-burger in New Hampshire. From dire predictions of 36 inches, they are now down to forecasts of 12 to 18 inches in southern NH. I bet when all is said and done, we don’t even get a foot.</p>
<p>Here are the latest predicted snowfall totals from WCBV in Boston:</p>
<p>Bridgeport -5 "
Groton - 17"
Hartford -11 "
Providence - 27"
Hyannis - 14"
Marshfield - 21"
Boston - 22"
Worcester -21 "
Lawrence - 21"
Portsmouth - 19"
Concord - 11"</p>
<p>Snow should continue to accumulate through 1 pm Saturday with heaviest between 7 pm and 4:00 am. Looks like the bullseye has now shifted to Providence. There could be 11 inches on the ground when you go to sleep and 25 inches when you wake up! </p>
<p>Last time we had a huge snowstorm where they were forecasting over 2 feet of snow, my husband had to go out every couple of hours while the snow was falling to shovel our very long driveway. He did this several times throughout the night. Some of our neighbors waited until the storm ended and were faced with shoveling 2 feet of snow. Lots of aching backs!</p>
<p>How do you normally handle snow removal at your house? Snow shovel, snow blower, plow your own driveway, or hire someone to shovel/plow your driveway? Wait til it’s over before you start or shovel as it falls?</p>
<p>We get the robo calls from the school for special announcements. Yesterday afternoon it was that school was cancelled. Just now it was that all weekend school activities were cancelled. I always know it’s the school calling when my cell and the home phone ring at the same time!</p>
<p>DH came home from work in Boston on the 11:20 train. His office was closing at noon and it was either that one or one at 1:45. Glad he’s safe and working from home and doesn’t need to worry about snow on the tracks later.</p>
<p>I made pumpkin bread and muffins this morning and spaghetti sauce is cooking on the stove now. I think we’ll have chicken/shrimp fondue for dinner and enjoy the family time. We just need to convince the puppy that he doesn’t need to go all the way across the yard to the woods to do his business - the tree next to the garage will be fine this time! However, since the news said we are in the 30+ inch possible area (only about an inch here now) and the puppy is not quite 2 feet tall, he may learn that the hard way!</p>
<p>Wood stove insert is happily burning away so we’re toasty here right now. Hopefully the power will stay on as we haven’t lost it in any of the past hurricanes/snow storms due to underground in our neighborhood and for a long way along the main road leading to the neighborhood. But just in case I turned the freezer/fridge down and we have flashlights and batteries purchased for Sandy that we didn’t need. Stay safe and warm everyone!</p>
<p>Teachers at my kids’ lower school had a favorite tale about 78. Two teachers (one pregnant) and a handful of young kids got stuck there for four days. The kitchen refrigerators were chain locked. But phones worked just long enough to call parents and maintenance, who told them where to find a bolt cutter. Twenty years later, they were still talking about it, still close to those kids. And, in that New England spirit, convinced they could do it again, if they had to. Or so they kept telling us, each time there was potentially rough weather coming.</p>
<p>I think Boston has already restricted driving.
Aqua, my DH is like yours; will shovel a few times, ongoing. But the prediction is they won’t plow our street.</p>
<p>And that’s why people stock up on food. My ex was in Boston during '78; the corner store was running out of food after 5 days, since no trucks could get in to resupply.</p>
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<p>I think that they are encouraging people not to drive but after 4 they are strictly enforcing only emergency vehicles allowed on the roads.</p>
<p>Snowfall has begun in Lower Manhattan. My company convened a meeting to discuss emergency measures this morning. The message is…‘don’t wait.’ Don’t worry about annual leave or vacation balances; Leave work early because you may not have public transit available to you if you wait, or that your usual commute home by transit may last a lot longer during this afternoon and early evening.</p>
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I have a snow blower, but the front opening is only 14" high. So for big storms I typically do it twice. It can be a real chore when the plow leaves a three foot wall at the bottom of the driveway.</p>
<p>I may go out and do it around 11 tonight, depending on how much snow we have at that point.</p>
<p>mstee-
I speak enough Spanish to have been able to explain the situation. I showed her the online graphic of the projected snowfall totals, which didn’t seem to impress her until I pulled out a yardstick and showed her just how much 33 inches (the high end of the possible total) is. Then her eyes widened and she realized I wasn’t kidding about her getting home.</p>
<p>aquamarinesea-
We get plowed but our plow guy will have to take multiple mid-storm passes to be able to keep up. Once we get more than a foot it becomes tough to do our driveway. We have a snowblower for the walks, but again, if the snow’s too high it goes over the snowblower’s “mouth” and the blower becomes ineffective. Since we have a detached garage, one of the things I had to remember to do yesterday was to bring the shovels from the garage to the house. A few years ago I forgot this essential step before a big snow and had to wade through boot-topping snow to fetch a shovel.</p>
<p>Thanks for the explanation. Yardstick was perfect for getting the point across. Made me smile.</p>
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<p>I can just check on a tablet from bed. We usually have at least one tablet in the bedroom. Checking on my phone would be a little harder.</p>
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<p>It’s just starting to accumulate in our parking lot. Probably 1/2 inch right now.</p>
<p>I’m ready to pack up and leave.</p>
<p>It sounds icy-slushy out there now. I wish my guys were not out in their cars. Worrying here.</p>
<p>Where I live in Northern NJ we already have a couple of inches of snow. It was supposed to change to rain in the original forecasts, but now seems to be staying with snow, at times big wet flakes, others small flakes possibly mixed with rain…my wife and S had to go into NYC this morning, hopefully it won’t be bad when they come out.</p>
<p>Um, BCEagle, you’d best leave pronto: “Gov. Deval Patrick declared a state of emergency effective at noon, banned all vehicle traffic starting at 4 p.m.”</p>