The blizzard walloping the Northeast knocked down power lines and made roads impassable across Massachusetts on Monday, leaving hundreds of thousands without power and stranding vehicles across the state.
Gov. Maura Healey said at an afternoon news conference that there were nearly 300,000 power outages throughout the state and about 350 cars stuck on roadways, some with drivers still in them. Dozens of school districts said they were canceling classes on Tuesday, extending a winter break.
The governor compared the storm’s harsh effects with an infamous blizzard that hit the region in 1978. That snowstorm, which was poorly forecast, killed dozens of people, stranded hundreds on highways and caused major coastal flooding. Nearly three feet of snow paralyzed the region for nearly a week.
“This is as bad as I’ve seen it,” Governor Healey said on Monday, later adding, “We’ll get through this.”
Wind gusts topping 60 miles per hour and snowfall exceeding two feet in some counties hindered the effort to restore power, the governor said. She instituted a travel ban on Monday in the most affected areas in Massachusetts, particularly Plymouth, Bristol, Dukes and Barnstable Counties in the southeast so that utility crew members could focus on restoring electricity.
Officials also asked people to work from home on Tuesday and said that a reduced schedule on public transportation would continue.
“We’ve got to be able to get snow cleared as quickly as possible, so that we can get power restored as quickly as possible,” Ms. Healey said.
In the hard-hit town of Plymouth, Richard J. Quintal Jr., the vice chairman of the local governing board, said that powerful gusts had rattled his home early Monday.
“You can feel it when you’re this close to the ocean,” he said.
Hampered by shortages of staff and equipment, he said, the town’s plowing crews struggled to match the rapid pace of the snowfall, and ultimately could not clear some roads because of accumulating snow drifts. In one case, he added, an ambulance became stuck in snow and had to be pulled out.
“Just trying to keep up with it is a battle,” he said by phone late Monday afternoon, “and it’s still snowing.”
In a separate news conference on Monday, Mayor Michelle Wu of Boston asked for winter-weary residents to have patience as the city struggled to remove another 15 inches of snow from the latest storm and find a place to store it.
Colder-than-usual temperatures in recent weeks have slowed the melting of snow from earlier storms, forcing city crews to use heavy machinery to melt the snow piles at 11 city “snow farms” in recent days to make room for more.
“Remember, we’re a winter city,” Mayor Wu said. “We know how to do this.”
Christina Morales is a national reporter for The Times.
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