From the first warning sirens for the Blizzard of 2015, I wondered how New London Mayor Daryl Finizio, who loves to throw a news conference, might leverage the storm for television coverage.

Then, with the storm raging, I noticed, in flipping through television stations, that CNN had sent a crew to New London.

Through the storm, you first had Anderson Cooper, anchoring from New York, and then CNN anchor Chris Cuomo, also in New York, cutting to reports from New London. Mostly these were measuring-stick-in-drifts kinds of reports from the parking lot of the Holiday Inn hotel in New London.

But every time I saw the CNN telecast from New London, I expected to see Mayor Finizio somehow pop onto the screen, maybe right out of one of the drifts.

When I caught up with the CNN reporter in the Holiday Inn lobby early Tuesday morning, she explained that her team came to New London because the Monday computer weather models had indicated the storm would be heavy here.

There were also regular CNN reports from Boston, Providence and Montauk, N.Y., at the extreme eastern end of Long Island. They were probably sorry later they didn't send anyone to Nantucket, where the blizzard roared on Tuesday afternoon.

The CNN reporter in New London told me she hadn't heard from the mayor but wanted to know his name and said she would be glad to have him on the air.

Later in the morning, sure enough, Mayor Finizio popped into the CNN coverage from New London, scoring a little national cable news television time.

The jury was still out Tuesday on what kind of reviews Finizio will get locally for his big turn this week at the helm of city snow removal.

By late afternoon, some grumblings were starting. Why, for instance, was the mayor ordering a city ban on driving to continue well past the governor's lifting of statewide restrictions? The snow was heavy in New London but not heavier than most of the rest of eastern Connecticut, where travel was allowed to resume.

New Londoners were good at complaining about snow removal long before Mayor Finizio ever found his way to the city. And I suspect the post-storm analysis of this event will not be much different than in the past.

Still, what a glorious day in the city it was.

There is something magical, first of all, in removing all the moving cars from the downtown.

For much of the morning, most of the few people out had a dog at the end of a leash. Why else would anyone venture outside, to lose the peace of an ordinary Tuesday suddenly turned into a holiday at home.

There were also gaggles of kids with shovels, young capitalists unleashed from a day of school.

Almost everyone I passed, heads down, making their way in the still-swirling snow, paused to look up and say hello.

That doesn't often happen, random friendliness. Only in a blizzard?

One pedestrian I passed on Eugene O'Neill Drive was an old gentleman I know to be a retired captain. His gait was a little crooked as he made his way down the center of what used to be Main Street, navigating carefully between big curbside drifts of snow, clear sailing, with not a car in sight.

In storms like this, we're all in it together.

Businesses that opened during the day Tuesday - the Dutch Tavern, Two Wives Pizza, Bean & Leaf coffee shop - were all cozy and welcoming.

Of course the peace of it all can't last, especially in New London, where almost certainly the politicizing of snow removal will begin soon, right after the cars return.

Wouldn't it be nice if, on the rocky, noisy path to the next city elections, we could occasionally call a truce, a snow holiday.

I suppose that's as unlikely as another cool summer.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com

Twitter: DavidCollinsct