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Three days into New Bedford’s “snowpocalypse” — the largest recorded snowfall in the city’s history — crews are still working to dig out many neighborhoods as regular city services — and normal life — remain on pause.
More than 200 New Bedford households are without power on Wednesday, though some residents in the South End shouldn’t expect it to be restored before Friday, according to Eversource’s outage map. The city-wide parking ban remains in effect, but the state lifted its travel ban on Tuesday — not that many residents could go anywhere if they wanted.
Most sidewalks lie under knee- or waist-deep snow, schools are buried (and will be closed again on Thursday), trash pickup will not resume until Monday, and local and regional bus service has not resumed. Even the Dartmouth Mall was shuttered Tuesday, but a few stores have reopened on Wednesday.
There is no expected timeline for how long the city’s plowing and shoveling will take, said New Bedford’s public information officer, Jonathan Darling. “Crews are out across the city and they’re going street-by-street.”
The city has requested assistance from the National Guard to help dig, but by noon on Wednesday that request was still “pending,” Darling said.
“Assets have been requested from the National Guard, [but] that request has not been granted as of yet,” Darling said. There has been no communication about when the National Guard will respond to the request, Darling said, as no one has responded to explain “the process for how it would get evaluated or approved.”
The Massachusetts National Guard did not immediately respond to The Light’s emailed request for comment. The regional bus agency, SRTA, also did not respond to The Light’s questions about when service might resume, but a post on its Facebook page said that service was canceled for all buses Wednesday. The MBTA commuter rail is operating on a modified weekday schedule, according to a press release from Gov. Maura Healey’s office.
Meanwhile, a new round of snow was coating the city Wednesday morning.
From Nash Road to downtown, neighbors on nearly every city block were going to extreme lengths to assist loved ones and strangers alike. Along Acushnet Avenue, Sawyer Street, and Purchase Street, the mountain of a response still needed — sometimes literally — became clear.
Heading south on Acushnet Avenue, Anthony Walters and Dwayne Russell were among many residents forced to walk the Ave while sidewalks remain impassable. Business owners had already shoveled — or were actively reshoveling — their walkways, but the piles on every corner made their work inaccessible.
Walters said he had already missed two days of work as an assistant manager at Locker Room by Lids, a modern millinery in Dartmouth. The mall’s closure meant he wasn’t expected there Tuesday, but today his car is parked on a yet-to-be-plowed street and no bus could take him in. So he’s spent the last two days hanging out with his kids, and decided to step out for some fresh air and a quick errand.
No fewer than three cars were stuck in the minor arteries that branch off the Ave. A visual report showed that most of Ward 2’s streets had not been plowed as of Wednesday morning. The ward’s city councilor, Scott Pemberton, did not respond to a request for comment.
Elsewhere in the city, At-large Councilor Ian Abreu said he had responded to more than 300 correspondences in the South End and on the peninsula. “This was, by far, the biggest caseload of constituent work I have ever received in a single day in my now 10 years of public service,” Abreu posted on his Facebook page.
Abreu also informed his constituents of his intent to rest, “effective at 8:00 PM tonight,” on Tuesday.
Just off Sawyer Street, a group of neighbors were pushing a sedan that had been spinning its wheels for over an hour. Warren Rosparka Jr., 49, who was in the area to snowblow his buddy’s weatherization business on Jean Street, was coordinating an ad hoc response committee.
“Ok, we’re gonna rock it!” he called out. Mercifully, the car rolled forward and was able to turn around in a nearby driveway. But then it promptly got stuck in the very same spot while heading in the other direction.
Rosparka’s crew reassembled and freed the car a second time, and after it emerged onto Sawyer Street, a hasty turn almost sent the car careening into a line of parked vehicles across the street. Thankfully it missed.
Another stuck sedan on Merrimac Street was so hopelessly wedged in place, that neighbors decided to push it out with their Chevy Escalade. Passers-by volunteered blankets to lay across the trunk to avoid damage.
It was a tense moment when someone called out, “Ok, GO!” But after a breathless few seconds, the sedan inched out onto Purchase Street, and cheers and high-fives abounded, especially when the revealed blankets showed no damage to either car.
Though much work remains until New Bedford is freed from its icy bind, evidence of city workers giving it their all is on nearly every corner, too.
At Hayden-McFadden Elementary, school custodian Neal Blanchard, 39, had been at work since 6:30 a.m. trying to single-handedly dig out the school on behalf of its more than 700 students and roughly 60 teachers.
City plows, independent contractors, and tree removal services also crisscrossed the few available streets to get where they’re needed.
The city said that the final cost of its total efforts is not yet available, but estimated that it had already spent $535,000 on snow removal before this storm even landed, exceeding the original snow removal budget of $300,000.
With a deficit of $235,000, the city will have to transfer some money from its rainy-day fund to cover snow removal costs, The Light previously reported. Mayor Jon Mitchell said that in declaring a state of emergency Sunday, he hoped some of the city’s expenses could be reimbursed by the federal government.
By mid-day, the sky had started spitting down on the city with rain, sleet, and other foul precipitation. Most of the city’s walkways near downtown ended with a Shel Silverstein-esque dilemma, and most of the downtown corridors were no better off than in the neighborhoods.
The storm spared none of the city’s residents, even that clever bunch who thought the Elm Street garage might offer some level of protection. A car parked on the building’s interior, half a level above the street, was still coated in two inches of snow. Those unfortunate enough to park facing the building’s exterior, were coated in at least four inches.
Darling, the public information officer, said there have so far been no reports of casualty from the storm in New Bedford.
Email Colin Hogan at chogan@newbedfordlight.org
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