Blizzard brings road closures, white out conditions in Lakeville

LAKEVILLE — Winter conditions have caused vehicle abandonment and white-out driving conditions in Lakeville.

Heavy, wet snow from the ongoing blizzard has downed trees throughout the town, and a section of Bedford Street is closed off, Lakeville Fire Chief Michael O’Brien said. Multiple vehicles have been left on the street, and scattered road closures continue to make travel dangerous.

O’Brien said multiple abandoned vehicles are on Bedford Street, and the area between Highland Street and Lakeside Avenue is currently closed. He said it appears no passengers were in distress when they left their vehicles.

“They just probably got stuck and left them there,” O’Brien said.

Although no large power outages have been recorded, O’Brien said both scattered outages and road closures have been reported as of Monday.

O’Brien said older and vulnerable populations face the largest public safety threat as households are becoming snowed in under the 13 inches of snow the National Weather Service reports has fallen so far.

The fire department hasn’t responded to any major medical, fire or vehicle crash responses, O’Brien said, but the winter weather is taking its toll on their response times. He said it took more than 30 minutes to get a patient out of their house this morning during a cardiac-related medical call, and more than an hour to transport them to an area hospital.

“All of our basic services become very, very difficult to execute. If anything more significant happens we will obviously be dealing with a very challenging situation,” O’Brien said.

O’Brien said residents have been staying off of roads, and they should expect cleanup from the storm to continue through the coming days. He said secondary medical calls caused by over-exertion during following snow removal will “almost absolutely” happen.

The department is asking residents to help others if safely possible.

“Hopefully people rise to the occasion and help each other out, and we minimize those occurrences,” O’Brien said, adding shoveling large amounts of snow is dangerous for people with pre-existing health conditions.

Residents are asked to shelter in place as blizzard conditions are expected to continue into tomorrow morning.

Lakeville's warming center is available upon request. Call the Lakeville Fire Department at 508-947-4121 for information and assistance.