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The New England Patriots enjoyed a more captive audience than usual Sunday as New Bedford residents huddled in for what was supposed to be the largest snowstorm in over a decade.

By Monday morning, the city had received a whopping 12 inches of snow, above recent years’ snowfalls but below the infamous “Snowmageddon.” Another inch could fall before 9 p.m. Monday, according to the National Weather Service.

The white stuff fell largely without incident, but not without enormous effort. To help with plowing, the city instituted an emergency parking ban effective at 2 a.m. Sunday. By early Sunday morning, tow trucks deployed across the city towed the vehicles of parking ban offenders, and cleanup crews will continue to plow city streets through Monday, officials said. The New Bedford Police Department’s emergency and non-emergency lines were overwhelmed by callers looking to reclaim their cars.

“911 is for emergencies and not appropriate for calls regarding towed vehicles,” the department wrote in a Facebook post Sunday morning.

The city lifted the parking ban at 4 p.m. Monday. Public Information Officer Jonathan Darling encouraged residents parking on school lots to clear out as soon as possible so crews could begin plowing those areas before school on Tuesday. NBPD media relations specialist Holly Huntoon said the city towed 466 cars and issued 2,054 citations while the ban was in effect—more than double the 170 cars towed during the city’s parking ban a week earlier.

The warming center at PAACA Recovery Support Center on 360 Coggeshall St. will also stay open through 7 a.m. Tuesday, CEO Carl Alves said in a phone call. The center received about 27 visitors throughout the weekend, and Alves expected roughly the same to return tonight. The center still accepts food and winter clothing donations, he added.

“We’ll be here around the clock,” Alves said.

Roughly 13,000 customers in the New Bedford area briefly lost power during Sunday’s storm, Eversource’s manager of external communications Olessa Stepanova said in a phone call Monday. Hundreds of those customers had service restored in less than a minute, Stepanova said, and the rest of the outages were restored within an hour.

Eversource dispatched three troubleshooter crews, three construction crews, and two tree crews in the New Bedford area on Saturday ahead of the snow, and also kept 21 contractor crews on standby. Luckily, Stepanova said the South Coast fared much better than expected, since Sunday’s weather brought dry, fluffy snow and relatively low winds compared to the wetter conditions that models had forecasted.

Stepanova also encouraged residents to drive safely in the snow, as any accidents could damage key power infrastructure and create hazards for the crews still monitoring neighborhoods.

“Our biggest concern right now isn’t weather, it’s cars hitting poles,” Stepanova said.

Ward 1 City Councilor Leo Choquette said the city’s Far North End experienced one outage near Welby Park on Sunday evening, but it had been restored within an hour and a half.

With the worst of the snow behind us, Choquette advised homeowners to clear out their furnace and dryer vents and the areas around the gas meter if it was safe to do so, and to also “take it easy” if they were going to shovel heavy snow off their sidewalks and driveways.

“We don’t need anybody having a heart attack from clearing out the snow,” Choquette said.

 City officials also reminded residents not to shovel snow back onto roadways or sidewalks, where it could become a hazard. Choquette urged residents to be patient while Department of Public Infrastructure employees plowed the rest of the city’s roads. The crews were out overnight Sunday and will continue to work throughout the day Monday, he said.

“It is a process — their first pass-through is always just to establish a route for emergency vehicles, and the second and third pass-throughs are when they make it good and do it for the residents,” Choquette said. “I got a lot of pictures from people being like, ‘What the hell is this?’ … I expect that today you’ll see a lot better second and third passes.”

City offices remain closed Monday, although most employees are working remotely. New Bedford Public Schools are also closed until Tuesday.

Anastasia Lennon contributed reporting to this story.

Email Brooke Kushwaha at bkushwaha@newbedfordlight.org. 

15 replies on “New Bedford weathers mammoth snowfall”

  1. What’s this crap with the side of the street with the hydrants are being piled high. When are people going to be fined for not shoveling hydrants in front of their home. You buy the home, that’s a responsibility!

    1. Well the parking ban is always for the hydrant side of the street…so it’s the city snow plows piling the snow there.

      1. And the neighbors piling the snow higher and higher, covering for he hydrant in front of their house. We cleared it from 1993 til the last storm. They never co e out, they never say thank you. We are in our 60’s. They have 5 people in the home all younger than us. We are not a service, we did it to be neighborly. Screw that! We are done!

  2. Am I misremembering that as a kid growing up in New Bedford, they plowed the even numbered side of the street, then the odd numbered side the next day? I think they do that in NYC, why not here?

    1. We used to have garbage trucks that doubled as snow plows. In New Bedford (I’m 64) you’re lucky if the street gets plowed once. But, blocking in the side with fire hydrants, people, plow drivers, should be fined!

  3. I live on a corner with a hydrant. Grew up in the Midwest so am plenty used to shovelling snow. What I am not used to is an incompetent public works department. I was out clearing the sidewalk Sunday afternoon when a NB logo plow shot down the main road, spraying slush and snow over the verge, sidewalk and beyond. That’s not plowing, that’s mess. You know it’s going to freeze solid. Later that night I again cleared down to pavement, but the next morning found that plows had cut the corner (tire tracks over the curb onto the sidewalk), pushed snow over the hydrant, and left a compacted mound 4+ feet high blocking access I’d already shovelled twice. The irony? The side street still has deep ridges, even though there are no cars all along one (hydrant!) side. There’s room for more snow further along. Looks like they pushed it onto the corner and stopped.
    The driver of that plow was paid. I was expected to clean up his mess for free, since the NB ordinance says people have to clear away snow from any source. Its wording slyly exonerates anyone who wants to make trouble for their neighbors, especially since enforcement is delegated to the same department that didn’t do the job right in the first place! How many people look up bylaws when they’re house shopping? Even in MA, requirements differ. I’m not surprised people are blindsided by this. “Common sense” is definitely uncommon, here.

    1. Yes, I did buy house by a hydrant on purpose. The way it used to be before Mitchell, the side with the hydrants was the best plowed side. As for emergency and insurance purposes. Cracks me up, some people do nothing and expect their neighbors to do it. If you have a hydrant in front of your house, it should be your responsibility. As for the plow drivers, yes they blocked our driveway with big chunks piled high, after we cleared our house and 2 neighbors. They can’t stop at every driveway and clear it but, the can keep the side with the hydrants cleared best. Is this a case for the new fire chief of police chief? Plus I am by a school and the parents on a clear day are like beasts driving, parking and turning around in our driveway.

  4. 1978 Blizzard, surely that was a mammoth storm. This was just a typical snow storm in New England. Born and raised in New Bedford 64 yrs. That was a storm to complain about.

  5. Did the city included Snowstorms into the thought process of reducing parking and building more housing (including ADU’s). After this past storm with over 400 vehicles towed and many more ticketed aren’t some of these neighborhoods already just to crowded and isn’t this going to create even more problems when future snowstorms do occur?

    1. 400 vehicles towed, 400 ignorant drivers! Just like those who park in the wrong direction on the opposite side of the street on a normal weather day! Just like those that turn around in others driveways when picking up their kids from school, with no regards for others property. Ticket them all!

      1. Sure I agree ticket and tow everyone that does not obey the ban. But again building multi family buildings in already crowded neighborhoods and reducing their parking will only put more cars on the streets and is going to create more problems. The snowstorm should have opened the City Council’s eyes to see that this proposed parking ordinance will not make New Bedford better, safer, or work in all neighborhoods.

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