<p>People are starting to lose power in the area.</p>
<p>45,000 outages reported in MA as of 7:45. The storm is just ramping up, so they’re expecting many more.
Here’s the NSTAR outage map.
[Outage</a> Map](<a href=“http://outage.nstar.com/outage/outagemap.aspx]Outage”>http://outage.nstar.com/outage/outagemap.aspx)
And National Grid:
<a href=“https://www1.nationalgridus.com/PowerOutageMap-MA-RES[/url]”>Test;
<p>Sue, good map. Will it update or is there a main site? My lights keep flickering about every 15 min</p>
<p>The maps are updated every 15-20 minutes. You may have to refresh your browser to get the latest counts. Of course they’ll be hard to check if you have no power!</p>
<p>I think one of the worst things about losing power is being without Internet access.</p>
<p>Thanks for that map, Sue. I see several outages very close to my house in RI. The wind has really picked up - lights have flickered a few times. I don’t know how the crews can possibly work in this weather - assume if the power does go out, it will be quite a while until it is restored .</p>
<p>The crews aren’t able to work during these blizzard conditions. They will have to wait until the storm is over and the streets are cleared before they can begin to start their work.</p>
<p>^ If you have a smartphone and a laptop, you can set up your smartphone as a wireless hotspot and get on the internet that way. At least until your cellphone or laptop runs out of battery.</p>
<p>They just reported on the news that next town over has gotten 6.5 inches so far. I measured about 5 inches on my porch.</p>
<p>My house in RI may not have power based on those maps - 83% in the town are without power.</p>
<p>I am relieved that my daughters are safe and sound in their respective apartments. Also have cousins with them …they have been cooking and having a few beers. I was worried earlier about one of them who had to work at MGH until 5 , which was after the T shut down and mandatory driving ban was in effect. I hope everyone stays safe and warm out there in the path</p>
<p>Medical workers are exempt from the ban.</p>
<p>The Boston Police were quoted in the Herald saying basically they weren’t planning on writing any tickets unless you were being stupid. On the news they said that as of 8PM there had been no tickets issued for violating the ban.</p>
<p>So it seems like the threat of fines and jail was pretty empty.</p>
<p>From listening to the news and the Weather Channel, it sounds like everyone has hunkered down. You’d have to be pretty crazy to venture out in the storm now.</p>
<p>You can use your car charger to charge your cell phone when the battery dies. We did this when we lost power for three days this fall.</p>
<p>Our wind is really howling here and we are 400 miles away from Boston. They are having 60 mph wind gusts up there.</p>
<p>We’ve gotten 3 inches of snow in the last hour (NW of Boston).</p>
<p>I can’t believe that I’m actually disappointed that we didn’t get any snow here ;)</p>
<p>Just watched the plow go by. They’re doing a great job on the roadways because there’s so little snow. It’s coming down but the flakes are tiny. I thought about doing a bit more shoveling but I think that I’ll work on it in the morning.</p>
<p>144,000 with power outages in MA now. It’s really starting to blow a lot harder now here (between Boston & Providence) and we’ve got about a foot of snow now.</p>
<p>H went outside to clear off the satellite dish (anything to watch tv!) …evidently it’s way past nasty out.</p>
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<p>I’m going to go out and do one lap around the car with the shovel. Shouldn’t take very long. Last time I looked, we had maybe 3 or 4 inches.</p>
<p>DH is shoveling now. Maybe it’s a guy thing? If I didn’t have to be anywhere, (we don’t,) I’d wait for the Sun-Mon heat wave.<br>
Btw, the media is also exempt from the driving ban.</p>
<p>Went back out and pushed the snow off the driveway. There’s wind but it isn’t anything like a blizzard. It’s cold out there too. I’ve read some of the local blogs and snow is from 3-6 inches in the area.</p>
<p>You can shovel it all at once or you can shovel it a little at a time. The advantage of a little at a time is that you don’t have to be outside for long periods of time and you can go back inside and warm up. Pushing small amounts of snow is far easier than shoveling (lifting and carrying or throwing) large amounts of snow.</p>
<p>Snow isn’t really accumulating on the cars - the wind is blowing off any excess.</p>