Northeast slowly digs out

Published: February 11. 2013 4:00AM PST

People dig out their cars on Sunday in Boston as travel eased and life slowly returned to normal for most New Englanders after a massive blizzard, but many remained without power in cold and darkened homes and a forecast of rain brought a new worry: Weight piling up dangerously on roofs already burdened by heavy snow. The storm that slammed into the region with up to 3 feet of snow was blamed for at least 15 deaths in the Northeast and Canada, and brought some of the highest accumulations ever recorded. Still, coastal areas were largely spared catastrophic damage despite being lashed by strong waves and hurricane-force wind gusts at the height of the storm. Hundreds of people, their homes without heat or electricity, were forced to take refuge in emergency shelters set up in schools or other places. Utility crews, some brought in from as far away as Georgia, Oklahoma and Quebec, raced to restore power to more than 220,000 customers — down from 650,000 in eight states at the height of the storm. In hardest-hit Massachusetts, where some 180,000 customers remained without power Sunday, officials said some of the outages might linger until Tuesday. — The Associated Press
Winslow Townson / The Associated Press

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