Storm causing power outages, worst of the snow expected to end by mid-afternoon

A skeleton crew, including Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy, manned Lynn City Hall today as the second nor’easter in two weeks battered the North Shore.”I’m here to answer the phones and help anyone who comes to the door,” the mayor said at mid-morning after accompanying Public Works Director Jay Fink on a snow-plowing tour of city streets.”From what I saw, most of the main streets were looking good,but there were lots of limbs and wires down,” Kennedy said. “We received a few complaints from Ward 1 and we have sent additional plow crews to that area.”Fink said Ward 1 seemingly experienced the bulk of power outages in Lynn. He estimated thousands of residents were without power in that neighborhood, although National Grid was reporting only 56 Lynn customers without service.”I would have to say 56 customers is an understatement,” Fink said.National Grid also reported at 10 a.m. there were approximately 76,000 customers without power statewide. On the North Shore, Revere appeared hardest hit with 2,300 customers without electrical service. National Grid spokesman Amy Zorich said over 150 outages were reported in Saugus, 20 in Nahant and less than 10 in Swampscott.No information was available for Peabody or Lynnfield.Zorich said 600 power crews were working the storm, most of them in Massachusetts.In Nahant, wires were down in many neighborhoods. Nahant firefighters made their way through the blizzard before 9 a.m. to transport a medical patient to Salem Hospital.Snow-plowing efforts by the Lynn Department of Public Works were stymied in some neighborhoods because of fallen tree branches and snapped power lines.The National Weather Service indicated temperatures along the coast would remain just below freezing or slightly higher, causing the wet snowfall. Winds of about 20 mph were expected to shift from the north west to the north east in early afternoon.Fink said the weight of the snow makes plowing more difficult. “From my vantage point, it’s pretty white right now. We had 7 inches by 7 a.m. and about a foot by 10:30 a.m.,” he said. “The temperature has been hovering around 32, which makes for wet snow. It’s almost as if we had 20 inches. It’s quite a challenge for us.”Fink said radar weather showed the storm headed northward from New York into Connecticut at 10:30 a.m. “It’s coming up the coast. We’re just hoping there is no backlash after the heaviest snow passes by us,” he said.The public works director guessed the most intense snowfall would occur in Lynn at about 2:30 p.m. and hopefully move on by.”Buy Thursday’s edition of The Daily Item for complete coverage of the storm and visit www.itemlive.com.