<p>Roof is cleared, sidewalk shovelled, but the plow has yet to come down our street. Hoping it comes before tomorrow’s predicted rain really messes things up.</p>
<p>Just 18" here on the RI coast, but winds were nasty. Power out 36 hours. I listened to local radio station most of the time and couldn’t believe how so many just didn’t prepare. So many “what do they expect us to do” calls, How about, do what is needed for survival…prepare!! These people wouldn’t have lasted a night during colonial times.</p>
<p>I was shocked that hundreds of cars were stuck in the snow on the Long Island Expressway Friday night. Gov. Cuomo didn’t close the roads in NY (as they did in CT and MA), but you would think people would use common sense when a blizzard is barreling their way and stay off the roads.</p>
<p>My sister and her family and pets are still without power in southern Mass. She said it was 38 degrees in the house this morning, and she was miserable–body really hurting from shovelling all of the heavy snow. None of their friends have power, and local hotels won’t take pets (and the dog and cat don’t get along with each other if they are indoors!).</p>
<p>Hopefully they get power soon.</p>
<p>^^^^ my mother is still without power , but she didn’t want to leave her house. She had her gas log fireplace going so at least the living room was 55 degrees . Some of the locals have posted on FB that NStar has a recording saying that part of town will not have restored power until the 14th !</p>
<p>Martharap --</p>
<p>Is your sister’s power company National Grid? You can check their web site to get an approximate idea of when the power will be restored. Brockton, Attleboro and Quincy should be restored by end of today. Cohasset, Scituate and Norwell will be restored by end of Tuesday. Customers in all other communities should have power back within next 12 hours. Hope this helps.</p>
<p>Her company is NSTAR and the website says they hope to have power restored by Thursday!! Unbelievable!</p>
<p>The Nstar web site says that all remaining towns without power should be restored by Thursday. However, your sister may be fortunate and have hers restored much sooner. I know how frustrated she must feel.</p>
<p>Well, she has a great sense of humor. She cleaned her fridge and says it has never been so clean!!</p>
<p>Also, they have lots of trees down on their property alone, so understand the difficulties facing the repair crews before power can be restored!</p>
<p>I’m going crazy stuck in the house - still not plowed. There’s no way for me to get anywhere unless the driveway is plowed including work. On top of this, we’re presumably getting a wintry mix of snow and ice tonight.</p>
<p>For some areas of New England, this was a historic storm or one of the worst on record.</p>
<p>DocT --</p>
<p>How much snow did you get? How long is your driveway? Do you hire a private contractor to plow your driveway?</p>
<p>We got 30+ inches. We have a private contractor. Our driveway is more than 600 feet long.</p>
<p>I live on the Southern Shore of Long Island in Nassau County. Here we only had about 12 inches or less. I worked at home on Friday but for most of the day it was mixed precip or even mostly rain… but it was entirely different out in Suffolk and I think that most of those who were stuck had left work early but apparently not early enough given the distance they likely were driving and the poor conditions. It started as heavy snow much earlier out there while here we did not really see the heavy snow until about 9 PM Friday night. My office closed at 3 PM and so if you worked in the city or even in Nassau County and you left at 3 PM, conceivably you were still en route home when caught by the bad weather conditions.</p>
<p>Did another neighbor’s driveway today, and later she brought over a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies! Pretty good deal. :)</p>
<p>I have a two story house, with a one-story addition on the back, which faces north. There was about 2 feet of snow sitting on top of the skylights in the addition, and with rain coming tomorrow I needed to get them cleared off.</p>
<p>So out onto the roof I went! In addition to shoveling off the roof and skylights, I scraped off about 4 feet up the upper roof. There is about a 2" ice dam there already. The problem here is that the ice can hit the skylights if it falls, and break them if the ice is large enough, so hopefully by clearing the snow the current ice can melt off.</p>
<p>Didn’t fall off the roof, but I did drop the shovel once, and had to climb down and slog through the snow to get it.</p>
<p>Good times…</p>
<p>Martharap --</p>
<p>NStar should post more specific information about restoration dates on their web site later tonight. I hope your sister won’t be in the cold and dark for too much longer.</p>
<p>Most schools in CT will still be closed tomorrow, as will courts. Non-essential state employees have been told to stay home.</p>
<p>Our driveway is plowed. So is our street, but, since I haven’t ventured out yet, I don’t know how bad it is elsewhere in town or in neighboring towns. I can’t remember another snowstorm that has shut down the state for this long. I hope tomorrow’s icy weather changes to rain quickly, but that we don’t get too much rain either.</p>
<p>My neighbor, who lives in our former barn, shoveled the snow off the new, flat roofed addition. I asked: no leak, just worried about snow weight. The next closest neighbor shoveled off his roof deck. </p>
<p>Is it right or wrong to worry more with new construction? I saw those places built, stick by stick. My house is closing in on 150. The roofs have survived more storms than I can know. I assume it’s solidly built. </p>
<p>A snow drift tends to form behind the main house on the flat roofed part. Three different people pointed it out to me today because pieces would break off. I’d bet it’s been doing that for over 140 years. Why they put a doorway under there is beyond me. And of course I can’t change it because the house is in a protected district.</p>
<p>You really have to be careful when you’re near sloped roofs and it warms up tomorrow! I was walking out of the grocery store once, paused to wait for a car to pass and a massive avalanche of snow fell on me! I had no idea it was about to happen. I wasn’t injured or anything, but I looked like a snow person!</p>
<p>Old buildings, IME, get wonky when it gets to the attic and roof space. They tended to use whatever lumber they had left, so the lumber sizes can vary from joist to joist. And collar ties are rare.</p>
<p>They were built to hold a slate roof though, so it should be pretty strong.</p>
<p>New construction will (should!) be engineered for the expected snow load, and will probably be well over-engineered. IIRC the building code in MA is something like 20 pounds/sq ft of live load, which is something like 4 feet of snow.</p>
<p>You have to watch out for ice too…that can injure or kill and has happened where tall buildings are. Pretty can be deadly too.</p>