The Effects of the Blizzard in Downtown Hartford

by Ian Webb
DTHartford Staff
HARTFORD, Conn. – When the winter storm everyone was calling “Nemo” had hit Hartford on February eighth, where it left damages and hours of shoveling. Hartford residents had the streets plowed for them but it took a few days to thoroughly clear the way for cars and even then there was traffic after the streets were plowed.

  “You couldn’t really get anywhere around downtown after the storm because everyone was trying to avoid the highway since it was gridlock there and because of that it became gridlocked downtown, you were better off walking everywhere probably,” said Larry, who did not give his last name, a resident of downtown Hartford who works as a cab driver.

     “My snow blower costs 500 dollars and it ran out of gas at one point so I had to pay for the gas as well. So I had spent my fair share of money on this storm,” Larry was able to explain some more. “I lost power for almost 24 hours I would say until it all came back on, it just wasn’t safe.”

  Larry was able to provide insight on what it was like to be resident in downtown Hartford 
 during this chaotic winter wonderland. The kind of money the plows in the city made during this 
 time must have been a gold rush, as their services were being asked of for more than 48 hours.

       “We had to do a lot of organizing and planning with the plow trucks with the blizzard as we had to maintain the roads by the hospital,” said a member of the Hartford Public Works Department. Some of the members of the Public Works Department expressed how stressful this time was for them. Because the city is so large with hazardous conditions the staff at the Public Works Department had to assign different companies different areas to clear the streets as well as deal with other things such as power outages or transporting someone to the hospital.  

         “We had to pay multiple plow companies to help out during the blizzard since there were so many different areas that needed plowing. We had a system of the areas that needed to be plowed,” the staff member continued. They split the city into two sections to organize it and then explained the dilemmas some of the residents created. “There was a lot of towing of cars that were blocking the plows that residents didn’t move and the police had to issue a hefty amount of tickets.” This had delayed much of the plowing of some of the roads all over Hartford.
        When asked about the power going out, the Public Works Department couldn’t release an exact number but a range of what that was like. “We had a lot of reports of power going out in a lot of areas all over the place -- some places lost power, some didn’t. It really mattered where you live."

            A member of the Department of Transportation commented that the amount of plow trucks as well as contractors to help clear the snow didn’t seem like enough at times. “It seemed like the snow didn’t end anywhere. We had the plows start the moment the snow got to a certain height and have them continue from their which took more that 24 hours. It was a big budget you could imagine.” This staff member didn’t have a lot of time to talk, but the snow not only cost a lot of damages, but it cost a lot of money as well.

           

          Although the immediate damages from Nemo are now over, the Northeast was still hit 

hard by this blizzard and some say it might have been worse than the Blizzard of ’78. Many 

greater Hartford residents are now safe and sound, but some others were not as fortunate. If 

the northeast endures a similar storm in the future, there will likely be more preparation 

because of experiences from this one.