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As New England Gets Another Cold Blast, A Reminder That Winter's Not Over Yet

SARAH MCCAMMON, HOST:

The Northeast is being pummeled by its third major winter storm in just two weeks. All flights in and out of Boston's Logan Airport have been canceled. Amtrak has suspended train service between Boston and New York City until at least tomorrow. And more than 200,000 people are without power in Massachusetts. Craig LeMoult of member station WGBH reports from Boston.

CRAIG LEMOULT, BYLINE: It is windy out here, and it's blowing snow in my face that's been coming down hard and steady all day long. There's not a lot of people out here in the streets except for some that are clearing snow. I think for the most part, if people can, they're staying home from work and just hunkering down as another winter storm hits our area. That is, except for a few people like Bill Coppinger in South Boston, who braved the blizzard to buy some booze.

BILL COPPINGER: (Laughter) Heading to the liquor store (laughter) trying to keep warm (laughter).

LEMOULT: Down the street, Linda Shen was walking her dog Willy who didn't look too happy.

LINDA SHEN: (Laughter) He doesn't stay out very long in this snow.

LEMOULT: So far, Shen hasn't lost power in this blizzard or in the two previous storms to hit the area this month. She says her daughter, who lives west of Boston in Marlborough, lost electricity in the last one.

SHEN: One of her kids accused her of turning the power off because of the video games.

LEMOULT: In general, this winter's not been nearly as bad as 2015 when it seemed like there was a blizzard every week. So Shen says this kind of thing's to be expected in February.

SHEN: March you sort of expect maybe a little awful but not all this awful. If it snows in April (laughter) then I'm moving. I don't know.

LEMOULT: Gary Elliott's been driving a huge plow since midnight, retracing his route through the streets of South Boston over and over. And each time, there's a couple more inches.

GARY ELLIOTT: I've been seeing accidents. I've been seeing people sliding. People can't really walk. Nobody can really see. I mean, it's freezing. Every time it snows, it freezes on the windshield, so you got to hop out, clean it off - all type of things.

LEMOULT: There's been some coastal flooding but thankfully not nearly as much as the storms earlier this month. Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker said one of his chief concerns is all the power outages.

CHARLIE BAKER: As soon as the snow stops and the wind stops blowing, we'll be pushing the utilities to give people a sense about when the power will be back on. I would say that over the course of the past 10 days, the utilities have restored 750,000 homes and businesses that were without power.

LEMOULT: Eversource, one of the state's two big utilities, says it activated its emergency response plan on March 2, and it's still in effect. And those line crews, like a lot of New Englanders, are probably pretty weary from what's turning out to be a very wintry March. For NPR News, I'm Craig LeMoult in Boston. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

Craig produces sound-rich features and breaking news coverage for WGBH News in Boston. His features have run nationally on NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition, as well as on PRI's The World and Marketplace. Craig has won a number of national and regional awards for his reporting, including two national Edward R. Murrow awards in 2015, the national Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi award feature reporting in 2011, first place awards in 2012 and 2009 from the national Public Radio News Directors Inc. and second place in 2007 from the national Society of Environmental Journalists. Craig is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and Tufts University.