Yes, time does fly, and for those of us who lived through the Snowmageddon, it’s hard to believe that 10 years have passed since we were in the middle of that epic winter season of 2015.
Major snowstorms just kept rolling in, week after week, from January through the end of February, eventually burying the Metro Boston area under a record total of 110 inches of snow for the season.
Even for those of us who enjoy a brisk snow-shoveling workout, the non-stop barrage of major snowstorms that barrelled through our area at the rate of twice per week was overwhelming. Our driveway resembled a tunnel, with the snow piled 8-9 feet on either side, which made shoveling the snow extra hard because we also had to throw it up high just to clear the wall of snow to get it out of the way.
We also recall clearing our roof of snow (because of warnings that the snow could become too heavy and cause a collapse). We actually fell off the portion of our roof that — fortunately — was not too high off the ground. We plunged into a cushion of eight feet of snow that was only a few feet below the roofline and climbed back onto the roof to finish the task. No harm, no foul.
For those who park their cars on the street, the Snowmageddon was sheer torture. No sooner had you shoveled out your space, then another big storm came in and reburied your vehicle. Some folks eventually just gave up and their cars remained entombed for weeks at a time.
Cities and towns were overwhelmed in their efforts to keep up with snow removal. Not only did they exhaust their entire snow removal budgets by mid-January (the state and federal governments eventually reimbursed communities for some of their snow removal costs), but they could not find any place to put the tons of snow that had to be trucked away.
In Revere, National Guard units brought in heavy equipment just to make the city’s streets passable. Some communities ended up dumping the snow onto their playing fields. In Winthrop, the mountain of snow that was piled high onto the high school baseball field still obstructed the field into late-April.
There were so many snowstorms and so many declarations of states of emergency by then-Governor Charlie Baker, that It seemed as though we were in one long State of Emergency.
So while we acknowledge the truth of the proverb that all of us tend to look back at the past through rose-colored glasses, we have to admit that we hope the Snowmageddon of 2015 was a one-and-done sort of event that we never will have to deal with again.