Snow piles, snowy sidewalks and snow banks are everywhere following last week’s storm, which also rocked the coast with heavy flooding, and residents are struggling to clean the mess.
Some snow piles are so tall they’re hard to see around.
“You kind of have to step into the street just to look around the snow bank and see if anyone’s coming,” said Erica Rayworth of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Some say it can make crossing the street dangerous at times, and that’s if you can get to the crosswalk.
“The cars are stopping, they’re just stopping kind of abruptly because I think they don’t see us until we’re sort of right on the street,” said Alexander Gard-Murray of Cambridge.
In some neighborhoods in Cambridge and Somerville, the sidewalks that were shoveled weren’t shoveled wide enough to get through without a struggle.
“Just got to be careful, try to walk on the sidewalks if they’re cleared, you got to do what you got to do,” Thomas Michel of Somerville said.
And all that extra sloppy mess extending from the sidewalks into the street makes it difficult for drivers too.
“We get cars that should be on the curb and they’re sort of halfway in the middle of the street and you get these big snow banks over here and sometimes it’s only your hearing that you know they’re coming because you don’t really see them,” Tony Bottari of Somerville said.
“It’s kind of tough, you know you try to pull out into the street and you can’t see around the snowbanks, so it makes it tough for driving,” Rayworth added.
In Boston, time is up for people using space savers. Mayor Marty Walsh said residents would have 48 hours to remove them after the snow stops. That deadline was reached around 5 p.m. on Monday, but more than 24 hours later, they could be seen across South Boston.
"Parking here in Southie is miserable," one resident said. "There is nothing worse right now."
Anyone who wants to report a space saver can do so by putting in a complaint to Boston's 311 helpline.
As of 6 p.m. Monday, MassDOT said they had 644 pieces of equipment cleaning the roads.
The cleanup is also stretching from the street to the roof.
"Certainly a lot of people have been getting ice dam leaks from this 15-inch storm," said Richard Melo, General Manager of Newton Roofing Residential.
Melo’s workers have been clearing ice and snow from roofs to prevent water from leaking into homes.
"When you have really warm temperatures and a dam that's already formed, that can lead to additional leaking cause you're just asking for more water to back up behind that dam," said Melo.
Inside houses from town to town, repairs are being made to heating systems as thawing pipes reveal leaks.
"If they're lucky, everything will just melt," said Andrew Baker of Baker-Elman Plumbing. "If not, they're going to end up (with broken pipes)."
