Clean up begins in Franklin County

GREENFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) - In Franklin County much of I-91 and Mohawk Trail were off limits to cars early this morning, and 22News was there as the clean up process began.

It was a 24-hour storm. The heavy snowfall began Friday afternoon, continued through the night and finally stopped Saturday morning.

Greenfield residents woke up to about 16 inches of snow, and even though it is light, fluffy snow, just because there was so much of it, it took hours to shovel their driveways and dig out their cars.

Kevin O’Neil of Greenfield told 22News “Usually we can do a normal storm in 1.5 to 2 hours, and it'll take us at least twice that to keep up with the wind. Hopefully the drifts aren't too bad with the wind picking up.”

But for New Englanders, this kind of storm is just another day living in Massachusetts. Shoveling is just another chore they are used to.

Leo Zhang of Greenfield said “I've been living here for about 10 years, we just haven't seen a lot of snow lately, you know. So this is special.”

In fact some business owners who were forced to close their doors early Friday came back out as soon as they could to resume normal business hours.

Dan Devine at Brad’s Place in Greenfield said “We had to clean up, so we came in, my son, my wife and a family friend. We came in and cleaned up the restaurant, got it opened up. Then we said if we are going to clean up, we are going to open. We are going to eat breakfast at least, and we have a few customers in there.”