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Readers share unforgettable moments from ‘Snowmageddon’ in 2015
One reader had a baby, another dangled their spouse out the window, and one even found a stray cat.
It’s Boston’s ‘snowmageddon’ anniversary.
Ten years ago Bostonians were trapped in over 24 inches of snow at the end of January 2015. Not only was this a record-breaking snowstorm, but it was the start of a memorable winter. The snow continued to accumulate through Feb. 15.
School, work, and daily life was put on hold while the city was blanketed in white. And while there had been massive snow storms before in the region, winter of 2015 sticks out as a year that has yet to be topped.
While Bostonians are no strangers to the cold and continue to brave arctic blasts and single digit temperatures, it’s hard to measure up to the ‘snow-pocalypse’. We asked Boston.com readers to tell us about their most memorable moment of the historic snowstorm. Here is what they recall.
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Responses have been lightly edited for grammar and clarity.
‘It was wild’
Joe from Southie remembers a death-defying stunt he pulled off with his partner to stop the storm from creating ice dams, “I remember holding my spouse by the feet while he hung out the window scraping the roof.”
For Robert S., who now lives in Reading, said digging his car out of snow caused him move away from densely populated Somerville. “It was wild,” he recalled. “Digging it out, losing the dug-out spot and trying to avoid a ticket, over and over. By the time the [third] storm hit [with] 12+ inches, we started looking at houses.”
‘That is how we got a cat that is very much alive today’
The snow crisis was a big moment for Boston’s pets as they panicked in the cold just as much as the humans.
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Todd from Dorchester gained a pet during the storm when they found a furry friend on their doorstep after coming back from a blizzard party. “We had no choice (let the cat live or die), and took the cat in. The next 2 weeks we could not allow the cat out due to the amount of snow. That is how we got a cat who is alive today,” he wrote.
Karen F. from Ludlow looked out her kitchen window to see her puppy sitting on the other side of the glass. “Not only did the puppy get out, but she was sitting on top of a snow bank, looking at me from over the top of the six-foot fence,” Karen F. said. “She had climbed up a snow drift in the back yard to the top of the composter and then over the top. For the rest of that winter, shoveling duty included checking for possible escape routes.”
‘Our blizzard baby was born at 4:30 a.m. the next morning‘
Kristen M. remembers trekking to the hospital as she went into labor with her son during an especially snowy Valentine’s Day. “We jumped into our 4×4 truck and white-knuckled it blasting through the snow on the way to the hospital. Our blizzard baby was born at 4:30 a.m. the next morning. What an entrance! He’ll be 10 years old this year.”
‘She did not have to make up 10 or so snow days, infuriating her 10th grade sister‘
While schools scrambled with different rules for make-up days and learning requirements long-before the hybrid routine established from the Covid-19 pandemic, Boston area students and their parents had to reshuffle their lives to keep up with the changing schedule.
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For Alexandra M. from North Andover, her children had different school make-up day rules that drastically changed their summer breaks. “One of our daughters was a senior in high school. Seniors at our school do not have to make up snow days, and their year is done 2-3 weeks before the rest of the school,” she said. “She did not have to make up 10 or so snow days, infuriating her 10th grade sister, who was in school until about June 29!”
Students who just moved to Boston for school were also in for a shock that forged bonds between college friends. For Emalee who now lives in Concord, New Hampshire, her freshman winter was unforgettable. “It was my freshman year of college in the Fenway area and I had many, many snow days spent bonding with new (now decade-long!) friends,” she wrote.
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