While Boston lucked out by receiving only 4 inches of snow, the Cape and Islands and South Shore got walloped, with some areas receiving upward of a foot of snow. Weymouth was one of those towns, getting 15.5 inches.
It’s 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday on Lake St., in Weymouth, and John Spyridonidis of the town’s housing authority is shoveling his seventh walkway. He and the rest of the five-member team have been up since 8 a.m. Tuesday, clearing the roads.
“Yesterday morning, we came in, we did a clean-up, then we started prepping, getting diesel for the bobcats, getting gas in the plow trucks, making sure everything worked," Spyridonidis said.
They started plowing at 5 p.m.
"It was just. 'Keep pushing it back so people could come home, get in their parking spot and keep their cars out of the street,' is the main thing," Spyridonidis said. "So then it’s out of our way so we can go out at night and just keep working. And so here we are."
The housing authority staff are part of only a handful of people who braved the outdoors this morning. The temperature refused to budge past 7 degrees for several hours, and the blustery winds only added to the bitter cold, making it difficult for the snow to melt, despite all the salt.
"The salt isn’t really melting that well, so this snow isn’t going anywhere," Spyridonidis said. "But at least it isn’t heavy like the last storm.”
Driving around, the town was eerily quiet. Congo lines of snow plows and those with four-wheel drive owned the roads, save for a lonesome Honda slowly making its way toward Route 18. At the Department of Public Works, Principal Clerk Shelly Roberts rose early for the occasion, fielding phone calls and making sure all 25 DPW plow trucks — and the 70 additional contracted trucks — were out on the roads as scheduled.
"Hills are always a concern, dead ends are a concern, and the most dangerous are the hills, and we have to pay attention to them for sanding and salting," Roberts said.
Weymouth has already spent $400,000 — $80,000 more than what was budgeted for this year's snow removal, and although a final tally for this storm isn’t done yet, Roberts says this storm has cost the town over $100,000. But she has already moved onto the next phase of post-storm protocol.
"To repair all the potholes," she said. "One of the first things we do is fix the potholes after the snowstorms."
Because every good storm leaves a memento.