New Bedford officials warning residents to prepare for deep freeze

By: Chloe Leshner

cleshner@abc6.com

@cleshnerabc6

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. (WLNE) — The snow part of this storm may be over but with a deep freeze coming, there are still challenges ahead. In New Bedford, cleanup is well underway but the mayor says people should still be prepared for problems in the coming days and have a plan in place if they lose power or heat.
People throughout the region are dealing with a one, two punch. The snow may be done but the freezing temperatures are still lingering, something city officials warn could bring more problems heading into the weekend.
Snow is frozen over stop lights, streets are slushy and icicles are hanging from store fronts, the aftermath of Thursday’s nor’easter in New Bedford 
“It’s a winter wonderland, everything’s frozen you can’t see anything but ice and snow," says Lee Bennett.
“The fact that everything is frozen, we’re going to have more tree limbs down so with that there will be more power outages, with power outages sometimes we lose heat and that’s going to be a problem for folks," says Mayor Jon Mitchell.
There were 15 wires down and 1700 power outages throughout the city on Thursday and they got around 8 inches of snow . Crews were working for 24 hours straight to pre-treat, plow and re=treat the roads, using 300 tons of salt and 1000 gallons of magnesium chloride. City officials say they can only do so much as the temperatures drop, warning residents they should still be prepared.
"The risk is definitely still there over the next couple hours and into tomorrow morning," says Brian Nobrega, the Emergency Management Director in New Bedford.
It’s something most people are hoping to avoid, but preparing for just in case
"We’ve kept it on a drip to prevent the pipes from freezing over and I brought a solar panel just in case to keep the phone charged. We have batteries and stuff like that so we’re good," says Michael Conti.
Mayor Mitchell doesn’t have an official cost yet but estimates this storm will likely cost the city upwards of 100 thousand dollars