How neighbors helped a Globe reporter escape her snowed-in home on the South Shore

I hadn’t considered we might be trapped even longer. And without heat. Both of these things dawned on me as the lights and electronics whirred off early into the storm. What little light there was outside struggled to find its way through the snow-crusted windows. I checked the warning Eversource had sent the day before, which I had previously ignored: “Blizzard conditions expected … Based on current forecast, restoration could take 3-5 days.”

My eight-year-old daughter was still playing happily on her iPad despite the power loss. “Can I have wifi?” She asked. I made my phone a mobile hot spot.

I wondered then how long the heat would last. Our wood fireplace was in need of repair and wasn’t safe to use. We had no generator. The house was warm enough to last us through the day. At least there was that.

My husband came in from shoveling feet of snow off the driveway, panting. At nearly seven months pregnant, I was no help in that regard.

“I heard three transformers blow, like gunshots,” he said. “And there’s a tree that’s fallen across the road. Missed the fence though.”

Small miracles.

The buzz of generators from some of the neighbors began to rumble in the background. I kicked myself for not having one too, or a snow blower. I added them to the never-ending tally of future home investments.

By the afternoon, I realized the house was growing colder.

“Has anyone seen a snow plow come through?” my neighbor texted at 1:46 p.m.

No one had.

The level of danger seemed to be escalating. The town requested the National Guard, the governor issued a travel ban, cars were getting stuck. Someone else texted that a family member’s carbon monoxide alarms had gone off. The family had turned off their generator and called the fire department, but the fire department couldn’t get to them. Open the windows, they were told.

I called my parents, who also live in Duxbury about 10 minutes away. They luckily still had power, and we made plans to go there as soon as plows came to both our streets.

“But what if you can’t get here?” my mom asked.

“Worst case scenario, maybe we can ask to stay with a neighbor,” I said.

Eversource sent an alert warning restoration would take days: “Dial 211 for warming shelter info.”

I laughed. How would we even get to a warming shelter?

Internet tied to cell service soon went down. No texts, no emails, though I could still make phone calls.

My mom called again as the sun was setting, worried about our heat. The thermometer in our bay window read 60 degrees. She wanted me to call the police.

“They can’t even respond to actual emergencies right now,” I said. “We just have to hunker down and figure it out tomorrow.”

In the candlelight, my husband and I bundled up our daughter in his warmest sweater and socks, and tucked her under four blankets.

The next morning, the house was in the 50s, and the sky a clear, optimistic blue. I could finally see outside the window — the road still hadn’t been plowed.

On the phone, my mom was more worried than before.

“You’re pregnant! You have a child! You can’t be without heat for this long. I’m calling the police,” she said.

She called me back within minutes with an update. Though the officers were kind on the phone, they were ultimately handcuffed. We could boil water on the stove to raise the temperature, except we have an electric stove. We could walk to a main road and have someone pick us up. But who would come get us? And where would we go?

I proposed burning some paper grocery store bags to generate some small amount of heat. My husband reminded me of our fireplace issues, and asked what we would do if the house caught on fire.

“At least then we wouldn’t be cold,” I joked. He didn’t laugh.

Digging in the garage, he stumbled upon some long forgotten firewood. Used sparingly, we could stretch the bundle till the afternoon.

We considered what other resources we had, and how to ration them. If we shoveled out the grill, maybe we could heat water. We could sit in a warm car in the driveway. We could ask to stay with neighbors, but it felt like an imposition with our dog, Scout, who was generally grumpy around other pets.

My husband’s sister, who also lives in town, called with an update. They got their generator working and had heat. In the absence of a plow, her husband had taken his snow blower to the entire street. If we could walk to a main road, he could come get us.

The house was 50 degrees.

We packed bags like we were evacuating a sinking ship, taking only what we could carry. I dug through old winter coats of my daughter’s and found a puffer vest that might fit the dog. He was none too happy about it.

My daughter happily donned her snow gear like she was going out to play. As I slid on my snow boots, my husband looked at me, my swollen belly barely concealed by multiple sweaters and two pairs of pants. He resolved to pull our bags on a sled, to reduce what I’d have to carry. But he worried.

“Are you sure you can do this? The snow was practically up to my waist in spots,” he said.

“We don’t have a choice,” I said.

At the top of the driveway, we saw what our neighbors had apparently coordinated that afternoon — three of them, all with snow blowers, were clearing our entire street. One also had a chainsaw, and planned to take down the tree blocking the road as well. We thanked them profusely as we walked in the narrow path they had just begun to make, and over to a street where the snow had been packed down by aggressive cars. My brother-in-law met us partway.

Entering his warm home, my entire body relaxed.

By noon Wednesday, the neighbors were cheering. Power had been restored. Many streets were still unplowed, though, and dozens in our town still lacked electricity.

But in the absence of government, neighbors rallied. An elderly neighbor at the end of an untouched side street was trying to have a caregiver stop by.

“Might have to get the snow blower gang back together,” someone texted.

And one after another, they agreed to help again.

Jessica Bartlett can be reached at jessica.bartlett@globe.com. Follow her @ByJessBartlett.