Boston, coast take brunt of mighty Northeast storm

The Blizzard of 2015 lived up to its name in New England, slamming the region with wind, snow and winter storm surges. The entire island of Nantucket lost power for hours Tuesday as the mighty storm blasted an area from eastern Long Island to Maine but dealt only a glancing blow to shuttered New York City.

In Marshfield, Mass., the storm punched out a 40-to-50-foot section of a seawall. In Newport, R.I., it toppled a 110-foot replica of a Revolutionary War sailing vessel in dry dock, breaking its mast and puncturing its hull.

The blizzard's force and relentlessness stunned even winter-hardened New Englanders.

"It's a wicked storm," Jeff Russell said as he fought a mounting snowdrift threatening to cover a window at his home in Scarborough, Maine.

More than 50 million people were hunkered down in the storm's path. Thousands of flights were canceled, road travel was temporarily banned in several states and schools were closed for millions of kids.

The storm was forecast to continue roaring through much of the region into Wednesday, although forecasters downgraded the potential impact in some areas. Parts of New England south and west of Boston could see 3 feet of snow by early Wednesday, AccuWeather meteorologist Tyler Roys told USA TODAY.

"It's a blizzard," Roys said, "and they will be seeing a whole lot of snow."

Late Tuesday in Swampscott, Mass., a coastal town northeast of Boston, the only vehicles on roads flanked by six-foot snowbanks were the occasional plow, police car or SUV. A handful of people who'd spent most of the day hunkered down were outside chipping away at the herculean task awaiting them Wednesday: digging out.

Jeff Dragon was shoveling his driveway for the third time since daybreak. Dragon said he likes the exercise he gets from shoveling, even if it by Tuesday night it seemed never-ending.

"I was born and raised in New Hampshire, and I haven't seen a storm like this since the early 1970s," he said. "Just the volume — it's crazy."

The National Weather Service said the storm tracked 50 to 75 miles farther east than expected — a win for New York. That didn't save Boston, which already had almost 21 inches of snow Tuesday, making it the eighth biggest snowstorm on record for the city. The total could exceed 2 feet before the storm wraps up. Temperatures struggled to reach 15 degrees, and the wind chill was minus 7. Gusts of up to 50 mph added to the city's weather woes.

It was too early to put a price tag on damage losses from the storm, said two insurance firms, Munich Re and Aon Benfield.

In Boston's Roslindale neighborhood, streets that would normally be bustling on a Tuesday were quiet as the incessant snowfall kept nearly everyone indoors.

"It's basically silent," said Roslindale resident Tina Rathbone, a missioner at St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral in Boston. She was mainly worried about her congregation: downtown Boston's homeless population.

"The main worry is that if people are out in this weather and they're intoxicated, that's a huge danger because you feel warm," the Rev. Rathbone said, "You're not really aware that you're getting colder and colder."

On Nantucket, Mass., ice buildup on a substation was blamed for an outage that left the 10,000-plus residents without power. Cellphone service issues exacerbated the problem.

Monique Currie, trying to get updates from Colorado, operates the Cliffside Beach Club hotel on Nantucket in the summer and was unable to contact family and friends in the East.

"I'm waiting for them to text me back," Currie said. "I'm trying to see if they're still alive and what's going on and if the beach still exists and ... if we're underwater or not."

Roys said the storm presented "a case of haves and have nots. The worst of it is in the coastal areas. Other places have been relatively spared."

Coastal areas of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Long Island, N.Y., faced blizzard conditions — heavy snow with consistent wind gusts in excess of 35 mph.

Three coastal towns in Massachusetts evacuated residents early Tuesday morning. They fled ocean floodwaters that rushed in with high tide. The evacuations of Marshfield, Scituate and Hull were a precaution, Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency Director Kurt Schwartz said.

Philadelphia, which appeared to be vulnerable to a major storm Monday morning, was hit with just a few inches. A blizzard warning was canceled for New York City and New Jersey.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio opened city streets to traffic Tuesday morning, and the subway system ran on a light, weekend schedule. The city had feared a blast of 20 inches of snow or more; Central Park had about 8 inches Tuesday morning.

The storm "was real, and it was as big as it was projected to be, but it moved eastward, and thank God for that," de Blasio said in explaining the extraordinary precautions taken by the city. "So the bottom line is we got lucky." The mayor said he would rather err on the side of caution than leave the city strapped. "Would you rather be ahead of the action or behind?" he asked. "Would you rather be safe or unsafe?"

Snowplows that traveled from Upstate New York to assist in Manhattan were rerouted to Long Island, which took the brunt of the storm in the Greater New York area. Montauk, on the eastern end of Long Island, got about 2 feet of snow.

"It feels like a hurricane with snow," said Maureen Keller, who works at an oceanfront resort in Montauk.

In Manhattan, many New Yorkers took advantage of the day off in Central Park, crowding snowy hills and slushy paths as they toted sleds and played with frolicking dogs. Some, compelled to show up at work, rushed along sidewalks so thoroughly shoveled that they were practically dry. Others gathered in clusters and chatted about how weather forecasters missed this time.

Mayor de Blasio said the cleanup would continue into Wednesday.

Driving bans ordered across most of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut were mostly dropped. In Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker said late Tuesday that a statewide travel ban would be lifted at midnight. But he urged drivers to stay off the roads unless necessary. "It is critical we all work together and use good judgment tonight and throughout tomorrow as road crews work to clean up from this historic blizzard," he said.

A sheepish National Weather Service office in New York posted this on its Facebook page: "The science of forecasting storms, while continually improving, still can be subject to error, especially if we're on the edge of the heavy precipitation shield. Efforts, including research, are already underway to more easily communicate that forecast uncertainty."

Some weren't so fortunate to escape the brunt of the storm.

"We just tried to let our 90- and 75-pound dogs out," said Abigail Zavod of Acton, Mass., where more than 20 inches fell before noon. "The snow was so deep they couldn't stand in it."

Framingham, Mass., had 30 inches of snow. Parts of Long Island had more than 28 inches before noon Tuesday. And there was plenty of storm left to go.

"A crippling and historic blizzard will continue to impact central and eastern New England into tonight," the weather service warned.

At least an additional foot of snow was forecast to fall across most of eastern Massachusetts, southeastern New Hampshire and most of Maine, according to The Weather Channel.

Sustained winds of 20 to 40 mph with gusts up to 55 mph howled across much of eastern New England. Even higher winds are likely in eastern Massachusetts, including Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, which had gusts of 70-plus mph.

Nearly 8,000 flights from coast to coast were canceled until Thursday by the blizzard, dubbed Winter Storm Juno by The Weather Channel and Blizzard '15 by several media outlets.

Boston's Logan International Airport did not expect flights to resume until late Wednesday. Amtrak service was suspended between New York and Boston for Tuesday, while other regional routes operated on reduced schedules.

The storm's impacts could last long after it heads offshore: Power outages, snow-packed roads and school closures may last for days after the blizzard, AccuWeather meteorologist Brian Lada said.

Coastal New England should continue to see some of the worst impacts from the storm's pounding surf and near-hurricane force winds, including severe beach erosion and flooding of vulnerable shore roads and homes: "This storm has enough intensity that it could cause new inlets to be formed along barrier beaches," the National Weather Service in Boston warned.

At Swampscott Harbor, near Boston, one corner of a beachfront lot was ankle-deep in seawater from an exceptionally high tide. A resident in a facemask and hood was checking on her car, which was buried in snow on all sides. A few steps away, three men in their early 20s were seizing an opportunity to make some extra cash by shoveling out a dentist's parking lot.

"You need money to pay rent, bills — everything," said Alberto Esteban of Lynn, Mass. He explained in Spanish that he'd been working for 17 hours straight, since midnight Monday, with a crew assigned to keep clients' properties clear of snow.

Contributing: Kevin McCoy and Melanie Eversley in New York; Gary Strauss in McLean, Va.; G. Jeffrey MacDonald in Boston; William M. Welch in Los Angeles; Associated Press