Winter Storm Fern (or Benjamin) has come and gone, leaving about 12 inches of snow in Milford, Connecticut, where I live—and 14 to 17 inches in areas to our north and east. This was the most significant snowfall we’ve seen in years. For me, it was barely a blip.
I recognize that’s not the case for everyone. At least 18 people died across the country during this storm. Others lost power, got stranded, or are still digging out. Empathy matters. But for those of us who came through it without hardship, there’s something worth pausing to appreciate: how much had to go right for this to feel routine.
Timing
The storm didn’t start until Sunday morning here in Connecticut—after a full Saturday to prepare. Governor Lamont declared a state of emergency Saturday night, effective noon Sunday, giving people time to make decisions before the snow arrived.
By midnight Sunday, it was mostly over. That gave CTDOT’s 634 plow trucks time to work the roads before the Monday morning commute. I drove to work on an inch or two of hard-packed snow on secondary roads and slush on the highway—not ideal, but passable.
For Connecticut, the timing was fortunate—other parts of the country got hit a day or two earlier. But good forecasting meant we knew exactly when it was coming, and the storm cooperated by wrapping up before Monday. A midweek storm would have caused far more disruption.
Supply Chain
On Saturday morning—less than 24 hours before the snow started—I walked into ShopRite on Boston Post Road in Milford. I’d seen photos online of empty shelves in stores across the country and wasn’t sure what to expect.
The parking lot was full. But inside, the shelves were stocked. While I shopped, another semi with a 53-foot trailer pulled into the loading dock.
I spent $60.57 on short-term groceries—enough to ride out a couple of days if needed. I didn’t have to think twice about individual prices or whether items would be available. That felt like magic. But it’s not magic. It’s warehouse workers, commercial truck drivers, grocery store employees, and logistics coordinators—many of whom were working through the weekend, knowing what was coming.
Utilities
It’s 24°F outside as I write this, and colder than that for most of the weekend. Meanwhile, it was 72 degrees in my apartment all weekend, and 72 degrees at the office this morning.
I have power. I have heat. I have internet. I have access to Claude Code.
Eversource and UI crews were positioned and ready. Natural gas kept flowing. The infrastructure held. For a lot of people, that wasn’t true—outages hit parts of the region. But for me, the storm might as well have been a TV movie playing outside my window.
Plow Truck Drivers
CTDOT maintains over 10,800 lane-miles of highway in Connecticut, plus commuter parking lots and other state facilities. Their fleet of roughly 640 trucks and 100 loaders worked through the night to keep roads passable.
But I’m also grateful for the guys with plows mounted on heavy-duty pickups—the contractors who clear apartment complexes and shopping centers. Because of them, I only had to clear my vehicle and drive away. No shoveling a driveway. No digging out.
That’s not nothing. That’s someone else’s labor making my life easier.
Perspective
For me, the biggest snowstorm in years amounted to watching snow fall, staying warm, and driving to work Monday morning a little slower and more carefully than usual. That’s a privilege worth naming.
We could all take a moment to appreciate what we have—and to think about those who didn’t come through as easily.