Not everyone plowed under by the storm

Lynn residents found beauty and reasons to laugh at the height of Tuesday’s blizzard even as they worked to clear snow and tend to the needs of others.With heavy, wind-driven snow piling up drifts and shutting down the city and the region, only plows and a handful of foot-borne adventurers spent time in a silent white world.”It’s like having my own private Alaska,” said Brian Fernandez as he walked down Ocean Street with his brother, J.C.The pair walked several blocks from Chatham Street to visit a friend and check on an older resident living off Nahant Street. Snowbanks provided them with a place to wrestle and the blizzard earned them a day off from Brian’s mechanical engineering studies and J.C.’s classes at KIPP Academy in the Highlands.Santos Gomez of Lynn and Anthony Mattia of Revere spent Tuesday with their noses to the proverbial grindstone. Gomez spent an hour shoveling out his Essex Street front stairs and sidewalk even as the blizzard whipped snow around him. He planned to budget five or six hours to clear his sidewalk while taking generous rest breaks.”It’s too much snow,” he said.Mattia manages the Union Street Walgreens store. He drove to Lynn by 9 a.m. Tuesday only to find the store’s parking lot snow-bound. Once contractors cleared the lot, customers trickled into the store throughout the morning, but Mattia said the main reason he opened was to ensure the pharmacy could provide prescriptions to customers in need of medication.”The main thing is that everyone is safe,” he said.Robert “Clay” Walsh climbed behind the wheel of a Dodge Ram 2500 truck at 1 a.m. Tuesday and rendezvoused in downtown Lynn with other plow drivers working under local business owner Matt McLaughlin’s city plowing contract.City supervisor Matt Proodian checked the drivers’ routes before the group headed off to clear snow from city streets, with Walsh assigned to downtown. He spent the night and Tuesday morning circling his route, shoving back snow banks and clearing roads for emergency vehicles.Walsh said he didn’t mind the blizzard’s relentless efforts to erase his handiwork.”I enjoy it – there’s a sense of calmness with the contrast of seeing the city quiet and empty,” he said.Walsh has plowed for 20 years, learning the work from his father, Robert, and a well-known friend who died in December.”Mike Kidney gave me my first paid plowing job,” Walsh said.He said Gov. Charlie Baker’s statewide travel ban and parking bans imposed in Lynn and other communities freed city streets of vehicles and pedestrians.”This is actually the first time I’ve seen people obeying the restrictions. This is so important. In a storm like this one, we are keeping roads clear for emergency vehicles,” he said.Previous storms Walsh has plowed tended to pass through cycles of intense snowfall and wind followed by calmer conditions. He said snowfall and winds never let up during Tuesday’s storm.”It’s right up there with the biggest I’ve seen,” he said.