Snow Delights Some, Makes Travel Dangerous For Others

By Lisa E. Crowley
BrocktonPost
BROCKTON—As the power outage and other problems from the Blizzard of 2010 wind down, residents who rode out the storm in relative safety, headed to the local sledding slopes for a ride of another kind.
“It’s awesome,” shouted 10-year-old Ryan Downing as he slid backwards down a steep hill at the Tower in D.W. Field Park Tuesday afternoon.
Downing, his buddy 9-year-old Bobby Crossman, (pictured below from left to right) and dozens of others streamed into the park after the Oak Street entrance was opened yesterday afternoon.
Parents like Chris Bryant--a Brockton native, who brought his son and daughter to Tower Hill after leaving Strawberry Valley Golf Course in Abington because there was too many sledders—were glad to get out of the house and let the kids burn off some energy after nearly 24 hours of being cooped in the house following a snow storm that began Sunday morning and didn’t end until Monday afternoon.
“We were fine. We didn’t lose electricity—it flickered, but didn’t go out,” said Bryant, who lives close enough to D.W. Field Park to walk to Tower Hill, but did not because walking was not a safe option Tuesday because not all sidewalks were clear and many roadways—especially Oak Street—were still covered in mounds of snow and slush. Plows and sanders worked throughout Tuesday to clear roadways and business people shoveled out sidewalks. However, pedestrians and at least one man in a wheel chair, (pictured below) made their way on the roads as cars passed them by.
The man in the wheelchair traveled at least from North Montello, to Centre Street and across to Commercial Street where he went into the BAT bus station. He was unharmed and motorists, in many cases made a complete stop to allow him to pass.
Because of difficult parking conditions we could not stop to talk to him before he disappeared into the BAT station.
National Grid, the area’s electric company, apologized Monday in the face of criticism from area fire and public officials for its response to the storm and drew crews from surrounding states to help with restoring power and repairing thousands of wires that collapsed across the region from the heavy, wet snow and wind gusts up to 60 mph.
More than 26,000 customers lost their electrical service beginning after midnight Monday. Some went for as long as 12 hours while others went without lights or heat for more than 36 hours. Plymouth County—one of the hardest hit in the region—at one point had more than 11,000 customers without electricity.
As of Wednesday, most have had their lights turned on, but local officials and National Grid have pledged to create policies to have a smoother response during the next storm. To view the remaining outages, click here to visit National Grid’s storm center.
Weather forecasts call for a warming trend, with temperatures in the 40's by Thursday.
One girl out on the slopes at D.W. Field Park, Coryn Nompleggi, a 9-year-old from Taunton (pictured above) said she would like to have another storm.
"Right before school next week," Nompleggi said.