<p>Weather Channel just reported that ALL THE ROADS ARE CLOSED IN BOSTON. What does that mean? No one at all allowed on any roads? Are you ticketed if you are driving? How much snow is on the ground right now?</p>
<p>Re: checking TV vs the Computer for school cancellations…</p>
<p>Do you remember, as a kid, laying in bed listening to the morning radio announcer make his way through the alphabetical list? OMG, it took forever. And if you just tuned in and they were at the letter after your district…ugh.</p>
<p>For me (in CT), it was Bob Steele… “No school this morning in Ansonia, Ashford, Avon…also Berlin, Bethany, Bethel, Bloomfield…” OHHHHH it went on and on and on.</p>
<p>^with fines up to $500 and up to a year in prison for any non-emergency vehicles on the roads after 4:00!</p>
<p>Here are the exemptions to the travel ban in MA: “There are exceptions for public safety vehicles and public safety workers, including contract personnel; public works vehicles and public works workers, including contract personnel; government officials conducting official business; utility company vehicles and utility workers; healthcare workers who must travel to and from work in order to provide essential health services; news media; travel necessary to maintain and deliver critical private sector services such as energy, fuel supplies and delivery, financial systems and the delivery of critical commodities; travel to support business operations that provide critical services to the public, including gasoline stations, food stores and hardware stores.”</p>
<p>It is now very windy and snowing quite hard - it has definitely picked up significantly in the past hour - I got home just in time.</p>
<p>Justamom, we listened to the same radio station. When I lived in northern NH, they announced (almost never) school closings by sounding the fire alarm at the fire station. I lived in town but always wondered how the folks outside of town knew!</p>
<p>In 1978,we cross country skied in the streets in the evening before they plowed. It was SO much fun!</p>
<p>I grew up in Vermont. Snow day? What’s a snow day? ;)</p>
<p>In the 7 years I lived Minneapolis, school was not cancelled a single time.</p>
<p>Growing up in New Haven school was cancelled for flurries - then we moved to Syracuse and I went to school in blizzards.</p>
<p>I was in college for the Blizzard of 78. There were waist high paths to our doors. We built and enormous dragon in the courtyard of our House. Some people skied down the steps of Widener Library. It was hard on the kitchen workers - some lost their houses and I remember we had a collection for them.</p>
<p>Currently they are saying about a foot here. It’s beautiful out there now. DH finds it’s better on his back to do some shoveling all along. We have a very nice neighbor with a snowblower who usually goes out and does one round on the whole block.</p>
<p>Our particular town hates cancelling classes and never has early dismissal or late arrivals because they can’t get the buses to cooperate. I remember one blizzard when my middle school aged son spent hours on the bus trying to get home - it got stuck on a hill. They let kids who called their parents off the bus to walk (it would have been a couple of miles), but my kid didn’t have a cell phone. I’d gotten word about the bus issue, but wasn’t able to get my kid permission to just walk.</p>
<p>My mom was from Montreal - she thought the whole concept of “wind chill factor” was silly. “It’s cold, the wind is blowing, so it feels colder. So?”</p>
<p>I measured 4 inches and the snow is coming down horizontally.</p>
<p>Sop14 - my D was in MN schools for 17 years - not one single snow day! </p>
<p>I grew up in NY state and we had the alphabetical school closing crawl across the morning news on TV. It felt like every time the crawl approached our district name, the channel would go to commercial and we would have to start all over again. If we changed the channel, it would always be just past our district on the other station. Every single snow storm…</p>
<p>I wonder if this storm will be as strong as predicted. I hope not! I feel for all those who live alone and might need help from aides that cannot make it to them (the elderly, ill, recuperating, etc.).</p>
<p>Sirens out there. H said roads were bad. Central NJ</p>
<p>The wind is just starting to pick up here (south shore of MA). We’re very concerned with flooding in my town. I am not on the ocean (live on the poor side of town :)) but many of my students do.</p>
<p>My H works for a major utility so I am a storm widow. Me and the dog. I think H will be gone for days.</p>
<p>EPTR- send your hubby some good thought from us. It’s going to be a long, tiring couple of days for emergency and utility workers.</p>
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<p>I live and work in NH so I don’t have to deal with Governor Patrick’s silliness. I went to the gas station where there was a short line - mainly caused by people filling up multiple plastic containers. Then I went to Trader Joes for beef - closed. I checked Modell’s Sports - closed. I thought about trying Market Basket because there were cars in the parking lot but I decided to go home.</p>
<p>The highway had two-feet wide parts of snow between lanes. The lanes themselves were dry pavement. There were people driving 30 MPH on dry pavement. Everyone else was doing 55.</p>
<p>Son has a hospital badge so we could get around in MA with him going back and forth to work. His boss is leaving later but I suppose that he could just show his badge if someone stopped him.</p>
<p>Things are still pretty mild where I am. It is a little slippery but hey, this is NH.</p>
<p>Just called the YMCA - they’re closing at 6:30.</p>
<p>I am in Michigan, and we had about 5-6 inches of snow by this morning. All the schools closed, as well as some colleges. My college closed, but I am at work right now (yes, I am taking a break …). The whole campus is gone except for a couple of us … sigh.</p>
<p>There was a discussion about people stranded in Boston and restaurants. Hotels are keeping rates low for those stranded - I imagine that they have visitors that cancelled too. A lot of Boston restaurants are closing before dinnertime so what do you do if you’re stuck in a hotel and you don’t have a lot of food options?</p>
<p>I guess that’s why the emergency order exempts those business owners and workers at 7-11s and, perhaps, CVS and the like.</p>