Over a quarter million customers are now in the dark across Massachusetts as the Blizzard of ’26 slams the state with heavy, wet snow and wind gusts topping 80 mph along parts of the coast and Cape Cod. State emergency officials say outages surged from just over 100,000 early this morning to more than 250,000 by around 10 AM, overwhelming outage reporting sites and leaving some communities with more than half, and in a few cases over 90%, of homes and businesses without electricity. The worst damage is clustered in Eastern Massachusetts, especially on the Cape and Islands, where near‑hurricane‑force gusts have snapped trees, severed power lines, and forced utilities to warn that full restoration in the hardest‑hit pockets could take three to five days once conditions are safe enough for crews to work at full scale.
Boston itself is being hammered by the same system, with fierce winds, whiteout conditions, and rapidly climbing snow totals combining to knock out power in neighborhoods across the city and inner suburbs, though not as universally as on the Cape. City officials have declared a snow emergency, urged residents to stay off the roads, and are asking anyone who loses power to report outages, avoid downed wires, and consider using designated warming centers if their homes become too cold. With Logan Airport seeing hundreds of cancellations and the MBTA running reduced service, Bostonians are largely hunkered down at home, tracking outage maps and bracing for the possibility that the lights — and heat — may not come back quickly if the 50 to 80‑plus‑mph gusts continue into the afternoon.