Hamden residents hit hard by snow

HAMDEN, Conn. (WTNH) -- No local community took a bigger hit during the Blizzard of 2013 than Hamden, where a lot of folks are still trying to dig out.

Pine Street in Hamden spent days under the snow, and folks were getting worried.

What if emergency vehicles had to get through?

"There's a couple of people who are very sick over here, and in an emergency to get out, and if something happens that they have to get out, how will they get out," said Gregory Himpanis. "I don't understand."

So neighbors got together and cleared part of the street themselves.

"They had four snow blowers, they had 10 shovels, and from that point we cleared half to three quarters of the street out," said Diana Hines.

The folks on Pine Street are not alone. Just a little bit further north in Hamden, anyone driving up Garden Street is in for a nasty surprise. About 100 feet in, there's just a wall of snow.

That's how it is for several streets in the neighborhood, Stephanie Shannon had to scale the small mountain range in the middle of her street to get crucial supplies.
 
"We drank all the beer, we drank all the coffee," said Shannon.

"You have to re-supply," asked News 8's Kent Pierce.

"We're out of bread, we've got no milk," said Shannon.

Others are not even attempting to go anywhere, except to walk the dogs.

"Not trying to get anywhere myself," said Erica Dzialo. "Not even with the way they tried to clear it with snow blowers here. It's just too dangerous to be out there."

"You do the best you can," said David Morgan.

"And we've never had anything like this," said Pierce.

"No, so everybody's got to chip in and help each other out and try to get out," said Morgan. 

We found plenty of people out shoveling, but there's only so much they could do. Then help arrived.

The heavy machinery from the town that will let some of the folks drive somewhere for the first time in days.