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A monster snowstorm descended on the east coast of the US for the past two days. The hardest hit was the Boston area. It was the 6^thbiggest storm in history. In some places records were broken. People who live near the coast in northeast of the US face certain  winter time dangers due to major snow storms. Here are The five major threats:

1.    Heavy snow load (some 30 inches) that impede traffic and collapse buildings

2.    Hurricane strength wind (up to 80 miles/hr) that down trees and power lines

3.    Coastal flooding due to wind and high tide

4.    Loss of power for long periods of time (i.e. no heat)

5.    Fire caused by downed power lines

To give some perspectives, here are a couple of photos from 2008 snow storm  http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-52332.html, outside the window of our house.  Next is the same picture this morning in 2015.

Whenever one talks about snowstorms in Boston, the disaster of 1978 storm  is always brought up for comparison http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=1565&do=blog&id=16218 . In 1978, the city was shut down for an entire week due to the thousands of cars abandoned on roadways which made snow removal extraordinary difficult.  Because satellite technology and weather prediction model  was primitive 40 years ago, the public was more or less caught unaware and unprepared with death and suffering resulted.  Nowadays we were warned close to one week in advance. Everyone is prepared. Lessons were also learned from past storms (e.g. in the 2013 storm http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-660877.html).Traffic and parking were banned from all roadways to allow for easy  clearing of snow.In someplace, electric power were deliberately shut off to prevent fires.People also built seawalls to minimize wave damage. Thus, 36 hours after the storm, almost everything was back to normal with minimal damage and no loss of life reported. Here are some statistics of the event.

36 inches of snow maximum

50-70 mile per hourwind

Below freezing temperature

4000+ piece of snowremoval equipment used

National Guard activated

250,000 tons of salt used to coat roadways