It was described as a skull-crushing storm by the national press, with an arctic blast so fierce that the ‘bomb cyclone’ was dubbed a ‘bombgenesis’ by meteorologists, and spread across social media like an atomic blitz.

On Thursday, January 4, the eastern coastline of Massachusetts and Cape Cod became Ground Zero with snow, flooding, and driving winds. However, Tri-Town was relatively spared most of the fallout, experiencing some rain, heavy wet snow, and winds knocking down arced, snow-caked power lines followed by a flash freeze.

Blizzard warnings went out Wednesday, and schools announced their closures before bedtime Wednesday night. Snow totals for our region were somewhat inflated compared to what actually fell – throughout this part of Plymouth County ranging from 5.8 inches in Rochester to over 6 inches in Acushnet and up to 13 in Middleboro.

The closest documented wind gusts Thursday were in Fairhaven at 46 miles per hour, not quite the blizzard strength winds that were forecasted, but power outages were almost immediate.

Marion opened up its emergency shelter at Sippican School as a warming center around 3:00 pm on Thursday, as 20 percent of Marion residences experienced power loss. It was then shut down two hours later at 5:00 pm when power was restored to the majority of Marion residences.

The storm was raging in the area just after noontime on Thursday, as power outages began to pop up as trees downed power lines. Eversource quickly dispatched its workers and restored power to most customers in Rochester and Marion.

“It was probably the best response we’ve seen in a while from Eversource,” said Rochester Police Chief Paul Magee.

But by 4:30 pm, Mattapoisett still saw over 1,800 customers without power, about 41 percent of Eversource customers.

There was one major accident on Interstate 195 West late morning on Thursday, with a vehicle striking a tree and three injured people taken to the hospital. Another Interstate 195 accident in the afternoon was minor.

Chief Magee said accidents were at a minimum during the storm, with only one vehicle reported to have slid off Walnut Plain Road.

“Traffic and accidents were pretty much off the table,” said Magee. “Most calls were just mainly trees and wires down.”

Magee credited the low number of accidents during the storm to schools, municipal offices, and businesses closing for the day, keeping people off the roads.

But then came the frigid cold temperatures that quickly soared down upon the heavy, wet snow that caked the roads, making some secondary roads nearly impassable.

Most accidents, said Magee, have occurred since the storm ended and road conditions deteriorated further after the sudden drop in air temperature, totaling eight between the end of the storm and Monday.

“That’s obviously high,” Magee said. “People are traveling too fast for the existing road conditions.” Not that they are speeding, he said, but that some roads were still in poor condition, coated with a thick layer of ice.

“There’s nothing [the Highway Department] could do about it. They’ve done everything they can, putting down sand and salt,” said Magee.

Along the Tri-Town coast, sub-zero night temperatures and below-freezing day temps finally solidified an already steadily chilling Buzzards Bay until it finally climbed above the freezing point on Monday, beginning the thaw that should stretch into next week, with warmer temperatures in the 50s predicted for the weekend along with some rain.

As of Thursday, January 11, there are exactly 67 days until spring.

By Jean Perry

Well, the results are in and I may now count myself firmly planted in the baby-boomer population whose aging joints are calling it quits and demanding attention – as in medical intervention.

Why I never expected to suffer in this way speaks more to my abject fear of all things medical rather than to my ignorance of the impact of aging. I am a very bad patient.

I should be glad there is the possibility of a slightly intrusive tweaking of a ball joint followed by a few weeks of physical therapy relieving me of the constant pain I now experience from the hip bone connected to the thigh bone. But I am not.

I cling foolishly to a fantasy where I wake up and it will have been a bad dream. But nope, this is for real.

I already know I will hate it if and when one of my gal pals says something like, “Time to pull up your big girl panties…” Where the heck did that phrase come from?! My panties may be bigger than they once were, but not that big!

All those decades I spent walking my legs off in order to stay physically fit and keep the DNA that would toss pounds onto my frame if I even looked at a slice of pizza were also slowly, with glacial exactitude, wearing out cartilage. Add to that some rotten trick of biology that makes bones clog up like an artery. I’ve been handed a one-two punch.

The royal we – as in me, myself, and I – are not happy.

This phase of life, at least for me, could easily be referred to as the gloaming. Not sun-drenched salad days or sun-setting golden years – something in-between, like another uncomfortable latency phase, only with gray hair.

Here’s where I have to remind myself to count blessings and reflect on how very lucky I am. Having perspective is mature, and I can pull that on more easily than big panties.

By the time my parents reached my age, their joints were seizing up. Dad should have had a knee replacement but that miracle of modern medicine wasn’t yet available to the average mere mortal, and besides, I doubt very much if Dad would have willingly gone under the knife. I get my anti-medical intervention gene from him by the way. He, in stereotypical guy fashion, simply avoided doctors.

Ma had her share of aches and pains and began her nose-diving career around the age of 70. She hurt a knee that never quite felt right again, and then both ankles disjointed and required surgery. She broke her collarbone in a fall, and at least once smashed her face. Although she moaned a great deal when she was still able to stand and pivot, she bore it all with amazing grace. She was brave.

As I lay in the MRI tube of doom tamping down my claustrophobia, I channeled my parents. I thought about Ma and her ability to face really scary stuff with the attitude, “…It can’t be helped.” Her ability to resign herself to whatever was happening served her well in the last decade of her life. That’s not to say she wasn’t really pissed off, because that would be a bit too much rewriting of history. She was the enraged hornet until acceptance rode in on its white charger.

Dad’s modus operandi was like the movie Finding Nemo where the character Dory sings, “…Just keep swimming…” He plowed ahead regardless of physical or mental limitations, including moving heavy appliances and TVs well into his early 80s. His “got to earn a living” streak simply wouldn’t allow him to put the brakes on and accept that his body’s tank was nearing empty. His knees fused together in painful bone-on-bone fashion, but he still put his own pants on every morning.

They were the poster images for a picture whose caption could easily read “TOUGH OLD BIRDS.”

I am made of weaker stuff. I didn’t suffer through the Depression-era or WWII. I was given food and shelter aplenty. If I didn’t want to eat the crust on store-bought bread, Ma would cut it off and eat it. If I was sick, I stayed home in a cozy room on the sofa being attended to by the family doctor and a mother hell-bent on returning me to health. Dad fetched the bowls of ice cream as Ma mopped my feverish brow. Spoiled and privileged in the 1950s bountiful fashion was I.

Now I find the memory of their fortitude comforting. If they could endure all that came their way, so can I. I’m working hard on being able to resign myself to whatever fate is planning, after all “… it can’t be helped.” I’ll be repeating the mantra “Feet, don’t fail me now…” I think Ma and Dad would appreciate that sentiment.

This Mattapoisett Life

By Marilou Newell