Civic leaders from New Jersey to Maine are issuing dire warnings about the huge winter storm that is headed for the area and expected to start wreaking havoc on Friday. Officials and forecasters are predicting snowfall totals over two and a half feet in parts of Long Island and Boston, while Mayor Bloomberg has instructed New York City residents to stay off the roads and use public transportation if they must travel.
Many of the areas that are likely to be hardest hit by the storm are still struggling to recover from the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy just a few months ago. It is likely that Sandy recovery efforts could be set back many days or weeks as a result of today's storm. "There's the potential here to have 20 to 30 inches over a widespread area, including Boston," Weather Channel meteorologist Jim Cantore said. "It's going to be crippling."
Of course, the primary concern for residents and authorities isn't the massive snowfall and the difficult cleanup. The primary fear is that power will be lost to millions of residents and businesses and that restoring it will take a very long time - especially with blizzard conditions expected across much of the northeast. With massive snow drifts, felled trees and snarled roadways, power restoration will be made exponentially more difficult, even for prepared crews. There is hope, however, that the advanced forecast and close tracking of the storm will have given power companies and municipalities time to align their resources to deal with the storm as efficiently as possible.
Many of the areas that are likely to be hardest hit by the storm are still struggling to recover from the devastating effects of Hurricane Sandy just a few months ago. It is likely that Sandy recovery efforts could be set back many days or weeks as a result of today's storm. "There's the potential here to have 20 to 30 inches over a widespread area, including Boston," Weather Channel meteorologist Jim Cantore said. "It's going to be crippling."
Of course, the primary concern for residents and authorities isn't the massive snowfall and the difficult cleanup. The primary fear is that power will be lost to millions of residents and businesses and that restoring it will take a very long time - especially with blizzard conditions expected across much of the northeast. With massive snow drifts, felled trees and snarled roadways, power restoration will be made exponentially more difficult, even for prepared crews. There is hope, however, that the advanced forecast and close tracking of the storm will have given power companies and municipalities time to align their resources to deal with the storm as efficiently as possible.
