City Digs Out of Blizzard of 2013

Shortly after the Blizzard of 2013 wound down on Saturday afternoon, Portsmouth residents broke out their snow shovels, snow blowers and even skis.

Portsmouth Public Works crews continued their work to remove as much snow as they could from downtown streets and municipal parking lots, but the sidewalks on most streets were buried in several feet of snow.

Throughout the downtown small mountains of snow banks were everywhere, forcing Portsmouth residents and visitors to walk up and down the street through Market Square and elsewhere. Two women even decided to go cross country skiing on some of the snow banks on Market Square.

Elsewhere, city residents were busy using their snow blowers and shovels to clear out their driveways and walkways while a steady, blustery wind continued to blow snow everywhere. In some respects, the scene on Saturday was reminiscent of the Blizzard of 1978 when people were forced to fore go their cars, walk outside in their neighborhoods and interact with one another in ways they previously may not have.

The Rev. Robert Stevens of St. John's Episcopal Church on Chapel Street was busy shoveling off the front steps of the church on Saturday afternoon after he cleared out his driveway at home. "This isn't so bad. We didn't lose power and nothing burned," he said.

Very few businesses downtown were open on Saturday, but some of the businesses that were open included the Press Room on Daniel Street, the Black Trumpet restaurant on Ceres Street and the Portsmouth Brewery on Market Street. The Market Basket supermarket on Woodbury Avenue was also open until 6 p.m., which gave some Portsmouth area residents a chance to buy whatever groceries they needed to get through the weekend.

Overall, Portsmouth fire officials reported very few problems related to the storm. On Saturday afternoon, emergency communications reported that city firefighters responded to the Marshall department store for a burst water pipe that caused some damage. The blizzard did cause coastal flooding on Route 1-A in Hampton and North Hampton that forced portions of the road to be closed.

But there were no power outages reported by Public Service of New Hampshire in the Portsmouth area throughout the blizzard. As city residents continue to dig out and public works crews continue their snow removal operations on Sunday, the National Weather Service is calling for a sunny day with a high temperature of 29 degrees and a wind chill values as low as -2 degrees.