City of Worcester prepares for winter storm

WORCESTER, Mass. — At Worcester’s Albany Street DPW Yard, the road salt and sand mix is in place readied for what is forecast to be a plowable event.

“Not expected to be a lot of wind, not expecting a lot of ice, no freezing rain, just snow, which is, in my perspective, just awesome,” Worcester DPW Commissioner Jay Fink said.

Commissioner  Fink expects the storm will hit late Monday and last all day, but it will start slowly, possibly as early as 10 pm.

Already the DPW’s plows are fixed to city trucks, ready to go.

“(When it) starts to snow, we put down a little salt just to make sure roads are passable. As soon as we get accumulating snow, an inch or two, we’ll put down the plows and we go until the event is over,” Commissioner Fink said.

The snow is expected to fall in Worcester at a rate of half an inch an hour

Across town at Grafton Square Hardware, snow melt is in high demand.

“By the number of people buying four bags of ice melt at a time, that’s kind of telling to me, that they’re not ready,” Manager Eric Spencer said.

So far, the Winter of 23 has been notable for its lack of snow

Eric Spencer tells me this coming storm, coming so close to spring is surprising his customers.

“Most people are getting ice melt today, but we are selling quite a bit of shovel because people aren’t totally prepared for the actual snow, vs. just a little bit of ice,” Spencer said.

And then there’s the supermarket rush.

At the new Market Basket in Shrewsbury, it’s all hands on deck.

“People are always crazy when it comes to a storm even though we live in New England. You got to get toilet paper, and gas, because Armageddon’s coming,” shopper Jennifer King of Grafton said.

“I think more people are here because there’s a storm coming,” shopper Diane Hogue said. “It’s a weird winter, but New England is known for its weird winters. We’ve had snow in April, so it’s nothing new.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.

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