End of Western Civilization in Boston: blizzard of 2013
 

Let's hope you weren't planning to arrive or leave this weekend.

It's been snowing lightly in Boston since about 10 AM with not a lot of accumulation, though they expect somewhere in the neighborhood of 24 inches and blizzard conditions.

Therefore:

Public transportation (subway, trolleys, buses and trains) will shut down at 3:30 PM

Private cars are banned after 4:00PM

Logan is technically open but the last outbound flight just took off 25 minutes ago. No arrivals are expected until late Saturday afternoon. The 4000 flights cancelled here will back up flying all over the country.

The big worry is losing power, but that is likely to come sometime between 8 PM and mid-day on Saturday.

Wish us well, we wish New Yorkers well (they are having it worse than we are at the moment), and remember when you obsess about the last detail of your trip, that nature may have another idea. I was supposed to leave for Virginia tomorrow morning. Now I hope to get off on Tuesday. Tant pis!

Were you on Nantucket during '78 Ack? Looks like you'll get some action on this one. You may recall that a phantom plane landed at logan after it had been shut down for hours? Plane landed, passenger jumped out and jumped a fence, and plane took off again. Good times!

<i>Private cars are banned after 4:00PM</i>

I don't understand why they would do this. Trying to get from one part of Boston to another part by driving is near impossible anyhow. (Just kidding!)

Stay safe, all in the Boston area!

Meant to say: Really like your clever title!

One thing that has been done in Manhattan that prevents the worst effects of blizzards is to bury the power and phone lines underground. This was donw in most of Manhattan more than 60 years ago - and meanw we lose power only if 1) there is a blackout on the grid or 2) we get a storm like Sandy - which has never happened before. But even then - much of northern Manhattan retained power.

It costs a lot when you do it - and you eventually have to replace lines that have been buried for 60 or 70 or 100 years - but for areas with a heavy population concentration it makes a lot of sense. (I'm talking 4 to 5K people per block - not per neighborhood)

Amen, nytraveler.

I am not on Nantucket. I am in Brookline, trying to get to Richmond.

We had 60 mph gusts in Nantucket last week, so we are generally in a situation where anything that is going to blow down has already done it! I have no doubt there will be hurricane force winds there overnight.

We had a 46 mph gust in Brookline earlier, which is unusual, but the building I am in has buried lines as nytraveler describes. If tranformers go, we go with them but we aren't subject to the wire dropping between us and the street.

I got up at 3 AM Thursday to reschedule my flight, and the service rep said that was a good idea. JetBlue did not open flights for free changes until around midnight, and I figured that by the time business opened, I would never get to a rep. Will Logan be flying by Tuesday? I don't know, but if not maybe Amtrak will be rolling by then.

Those of you who hate driving in Boston would love it tonight: the streets and expressways are empty.

There were apparently 16 foot waves in Long Island Sound this afternoon, and we aren't there yet. Stay tuned!

As I type on Friday night the wind is blowing fiercely and a blizzard in effect tonight and tomorrow. Could be over two feet of snow in Boston area. Definitely a time to stay warm indoors. Some real concerns about coastal flooding.

Bill in Boston (Watertown)

Yep, blowing snow all night...and about two feet in Boston area (outside our apartment). Things tapering off Saturday morning but no traffic sanctioned. Mostly plow trucks moving. Some power outages in the state. Still flooding, high tide concerns.

Stay safe everyone! Thanks for the updates.

Same in Brookline, Bill.

I have to give the Governor and the Mayor enormous credit for shutting down the T and getting cars off the road.

These were courageous decisions for which they will no doubt be criticized, but they actually learned from Hurricane Sandy and from the Storm of the Last Century, the Blizzard of '78 in which drivers abandoned 3000 cars and 500 trucks on Route 128.

Ackislander, I agree with you about the Governor's and Mayor's decisions. I have heard complaints but I think they made the correct and hard decisions.

Hope everyone is getting shoveled out. Things in Boston and environs will be back to normal on Monday, if not before.

The decisions make sense, but how do the swing-shift and graveyard-shift emergency service people and hospital employees get to work? Did they all just go in early and sleep there until their shifts started?

I love neighborhoods with underground powerlines, NYtraveler. It is an advantage of living in a newer neighborhood out here and rare that a storm like Sandy makes it a liability.

People in critical positions are allowed to go at their own risk if they dare, in CT. Some places the police and firefighters were not allowed to leave, but could get some sleep in the firehouse. Many police cars could not handle the snow on the streets and some fire engines had a plow truck escort to emergencies.

In any case the ban has been lifted, but people have been urged to stay home unless it is really necessary. We won't get out of our house until the plow guy gets here and clears a path for us or spring comes whichever happens first.

5alive, there were exemptions in Massachusetts to the driving ban for hospital employees and other essential or storm related workers.