(Newswire.net — January 28, 2015) — Following warnings from city and state officials about an ‘historic’ snowstorm, New Yorkers dutifully prepared for the worst. Grocery were stockpiled, there was not a battery left on the store shelves, cars were banned from the roads. Even public transportation was shuttered, and citizens barricaded their homes awaiting doomsday scenes from ‘The Day After Tomorrow’.
Then, the snow falls…same as the winter before, and any other normal winter in New York. For much of New York City, New Jersey and Philadelphia, the “storm of the century” never happened, and the media started pointing fingers at the meteorologists. Instead of measureing in feet, the snow cover was measured in inches, which aggravated many.
“My deepest apologies to many key decision makers and so many members of the general public,” tweeted Gary Szatkowski of the National Weather Service.
Under fire for his decision to shut down public transportation for the first time ever due to a snowstorm, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo came under fire, however, he did the best he could under the circumstances. Not ‘historic’, however a snow blizzard actually did occur in many other areas, sparing the East cost.
According to NBC News, just over 30 inches of snow fell in Thompson and Connecticut, while Burrillville, Rhode Island dealt with about 24 inches, NBC News reported. Long Island experienced nearly 29 inches of snow, according to the Washington Post.
Apparently, flooding was a greater problem for some towns along the coast. Some parts of Massachusetts saw 7 feet of water as the blizzard pounded homes with winds not typically seen unless during a hurricane, NBC News reported.
According to an NBC News source from Marshfield, Massachusetts, his home was flooded, “there is about 4 feet of water in the street in front of the house,” he said. “We do get flooding here, but this is the worst I’ve seen in the 15 years I’ve lived here. My house is on stilts, but another few inches and we might be in trouble,” the source told NBC.
“We have a lot of damage from the high tide last night, a lot of high winds,” Marshfield Fire Captain Shaun Robinson, who inspected the damage on Tuesday, told WHDH in Boston. “The pilings on the front of the buildings literally were snapped.”
While Marshfield is fighting the floods, meteorologists say that the science of forecasting storms still can be subject to error. No matter the sophisticated methods and the high-end technology we use, nature always finds its ways to demonstrate to humanity who is in charge.