Transaction of business came to a virtual standstill in parts of the city due to the seemingly unnecessary declaration of a “snow emergency” this week.

By Ross E. Blouin, Publisher The Somerville Times

SNOW EMERGENCY! You have got to be kidding! Calling a snow emergency for 5:00 a.m. on Monday was just a bit over exuberant … talk about inconvenient.

We realize the DPW needs to line up the contractors and equipment, but don’t you think they could figure out that they would not need the heavy equipment until the actual storm was well underway? It was 9:00 a.m. and not one drop of snow had fallen.

To make matters worse, we had giant plows roaming around, tearing up the streets with nothing to plow. The City of Boston did not even call a snow emergency. The weather forecasters were calling for 4-8 inches, so where was the emergency? Wouldn’t it have been kinder to allow everyone to leave their parking spaces by 10:00 a.m.? The DPW had all the meters covered on the main streets and squares by 7:00 a.m. according to some estimates.

The towing companies were busy enough, judging from the number of cars towed to the Dilboy lot.

Can you imagine trying to run a business with no parking allowed? The only business being done was by the tow truck drivers and company filling up Alewife’s Dilboy’s Parking lot.

As you can see by the picture here of one of the city’s squares at 3:00 p.m. on Monday afternoon, it was deserted with barely 2 inches – maybe 3 – at most on the ground.

Meanwhile, snowplows traveling by threes were on the road, driving around looking for snow to plow. Imagine, three in a row and hardly any snow on the ground. Let’s not forget the sand trucks leaving clumps of sand on the streets that had no snow on them.