Several inches of snow pummeled southeastern Connecticut overnight and early Thursday, causing school closures, parking bans and travel advisories.

By 2 p.m., 8.2 inches of snow had fallen in New London, 9.3 inches covered the ground in Ledyard and 11.5 inches had been measured in Norwich, according to the National Weather Service. Snow continued to fall Thursday morning and afternoon, adding to the piles on roads and sidewalks as wind gusts as high as 37 mph ripped through the region. A storm warning was in effect across the region until 1 p.m. and light snow still was falling in some areas about 2 p.m.

The storm stretched nearly 1,000 miles along the East Coast and prompted winter weather advisories for nearly 60 million residents. In Connecticut, Gov. Ned Lamont said Thursday morning that 8 to 14 inches had fallen throughout the state and came down at a rate of 2 inches per hour overnight. More than 700 snowplows worked for more than 14 hours, he said, adding that there have been few electricity outages reported and no major accidents or incidents.

Still, the storm hindered Thursday morning commuters. The weather service warned drivers that travel would be "difficult to impossible," with visibility of one mile or less. And Thursday night, temperatures were expected to drop to the low 20s and even into the teens in some parts of southeastern Connecticut, likely leading to black ice on the roads, NWS meteorologist David Stark said.

Temperatures were expected to climb back up to a high of about 33 degrees Friday with mostly sunny skies, the weather service reported, then plunge again overnight Friday into Saturday. Single-digit lows were possible inland Friday night, according to the Meteorological Studies and Weather Center at Western Connecticut State University.

Snow day for many students, but what about workers?

Many schools have been operating on hybrid remote learning schedules because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but New London, Norwich, Groton, Waterford, East Lyme and Stonington schools decided to entirely close Thursday, rather than shifting to online learning.

But what about businesses?

In a typical year, a storm like this one would have shuttered businesses across the region for a mid-December snow day. But in 2020, working from home has been the norm, and treacherous roads didn’t keep many employees from logging on Thursday as snow continued to fall.

Tony Sheridan, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut, said that many businesses affiliated with the chamber likely would have closed due to a storm like this one — including the chamber itself — but not this year.

“Normally there would’ve been a whole host of businesses that would’ve closed. We would’ve been closed at the chamber and most white-collar workers and anyone in the legal business wouldn’t have been able to go to work this morning because the governor has asked that we stay off the roads,” he said. “Before this year, they wouldn’t have been able to work from home. But now you don’t have to travel, that’s one of the conveniences of being forced into doing virtual meetings by the pandemic.”

At Pfizer, the snow caused a delayed opening Thursday. Connecticut employees were notified Wednesday afternoon that the company would open at 10 a.m. Thursday due to forecasts that the brunt of the storm would impact the morning commute.

Because of the pandemic, many employees were already working from home, and the company on Thursday encouraged all those who could work from home to do so, spokesperson Jess Smith said. Employees working in labs and other critical areas still reported to work to continue their momentum on all projects, including work on the COVID-19 vaccine.

Electric Boat was operating Thursday despite the snow but is prepared for remote work if necessary after navigating the pandemic. "We have many more employees working from home than in the past and have deployed thousands of laptops during the pandemic to enable this," said Liz Powers, spokeswoman for EB. "Our shipyard operates every day of the year, but like other businesses, see impacts due to the severe weather."

Sheridan said that being able to work no matter the weather is a good thing, especially for many small businesses, but isn’t without its consequences.

“There's a little bit of a kid in all of us in the sense that we think, ‘Oh, a snow day, a day off!’” he said. “But that’s not the case anymore. I’ve been in meetings and on Zoom calls all day.”

Matt Spring, a financial adviser at Stifel in Mystic, transitioned to working from home in March due to COVID-19 and recently has been operating on a hybrid schedule — going into the office some days and working remotely others.

So, he was prepared Thursday to hole up in his home office to wait out the snow and still get his work done.

“A year ago when a snow day like this happened, it probably would’ve been a wash of a day because we wouldn’t have had the infrastructure or the familiarity of remote work," he said. “But because we’ve been doing it for the last nine months, we were prepared and anyone who would’ve been in the office today just worked from home.”

Spring, like Sheridan, felt the sting of a lost snow day.

“It’s a little bit of a double-edged sword, it’s not really a snow day because we’re still working,” he said.

Despite the snow, Spring’s 6-year-old nephew had to attend remote learning classes Thursday. He said he was glad to see that most school systems in the area honored the tradition of a snow day.

“I feel like you’d need to be a villain in (a) Christmas movie, like the Grinch, to take that away from kids,” he joked.

If it weren’t for the pandemic, Spring said, his company wouldn’t have been equipped to work remotely. “There was definitely a learning curve because my business is kind of old-school, we’re very much used to being in the office and I think part of it is the security involved in our job,” he said.

Since the company handles a lot of sensitive information from clients, and requires a lot of signatures, the staff had to build new infrastructure and practices to adjust when the pandemic forced them out of the office. They learned to log on to their servers remotely, meet with clients over Zoom and set up a drop box for documents at the office.

Sheridan said that he doesn’t think many industries would have made the jump to learning how to work remotely if they weren’t forced into it in 2020. “I don't think we’d have gotten there on our own without the pandemic.” 

“The question is, will it have a long-term impact and survive the pandemic or will we go back to business as usual?” he said.

People in the commercial real estate business are worried about their properties and whether they’ll be used in the future, Sheridan said. He wonders if the clothing industry will be impacted now that people don’t need to dress up for work every day, and he’s noticed that he’s now filling up his gas tank once every few weeks, instead of a few times a week, and wonders how that will impact the economy.

“This country has always been very creative. We've always been willing to adjust, adapt to whatever circumstances that we need to. We needed to find new ways and we found them,” he said. “There will hopefully be some good that comes out of this.”

Few issues reported

As of 8 a.m. Thursday, Eversource was reporting 356 power outages and United Illuminating/Avangrid were reporting 100 outages. About 7 p.m. Thursday, Eversource reported that 15 customers were experiencing outages, with several scattered outages in the region affecting a small number of people in Old Saybrook, Groton, Preston and Stonington. United Illuminating/Avangrid was reporting two outages affecting three customers.

State police said they had responded to 1,260 calls for service, 97 motor vehicle accidents and 240 motor vehicle assists as of 6 p.m. Parking bans were in place in most towns and cities in the region during the storm. A tractor-trailer and tandem trailer truck travel ban on limited-access highways statewide that went into effect at 9 p.m. Wednesday was lifted Thursday morning, and bus and paratransit services statewide were expected to resume at noon Thursday. Southeast Area Transit District suspended bus service on Thursday, but planned to resume service on Friday.

Approximately 30 shelters are open throughout Connecticut, according to the governor's office. Anyone in need of shelter should call 211.

Day Staff Writers Brian Hallenbeck and Kimberly Drelich contributed to this report.

t.hartz@theday.com