The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 15

FEBRUARY 1, 1998 'Sj Opinion Around the Towns 4 Political Notebook Business 8 People Places ltf Sports 13 "Yr- i 1 1 b'J 1 HSQl'l'pl mi 1 ilJ Tfiy-- 44 THE BLIZZARD OF '78 Village It's 'all aboard' new rail service MBTA: Ridership above projections pntheOld Colony fears impact of huge store Scale questioned, while Plymouth needs the taxes A record 27.1 inches of snow fell in 32 hours and 4-0 minutes; tides were 16 feet above normal; 10,000 people living in coastal areas were evacuated; 3,500 vehicles were stranded for days on Route 128. National Guardsmen and federal troops were mobilized for rescue and cleanup efforts. By Alexander Reid GLOBE STAFF 4P- 1 A-sJ 'v 1978 GLOBE RLE PHOTO More than 25 houses, including this one, were demolished on Scituate's Peggotty Beach during the blizzard. Memories of chaos and camaraderie linger By Lisa Brems GLOBE CORRESPONDENT AND JeffMcLaughlin GLOBE STAFF PLYMOUTH Among the town's five villages is Cedarville, a semi-rural community with striking ocean views, inland ponds, cranberry bogs, and many acres of undeveloped land. For decades Cedarville has been largely untouched by development, and in 1991, its residents took steps to keep it that way.

They created a master plan, a blueprint complete with zoning restrictions and other controls to prohibit large-scale growth, and the town adopted it. But now, Home Depot is on the horizon. i The Atlanta-based company, which operates 584 stores in the United States and 32 in' Canada, is poised to build a superstore on a tract of Cedarville property exempt from those 1991 zoning restrictions. The Home Depot plan comes as Plymouth, threatened with the loss of its revenue mainstay, the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station, is worried about its financial future and needs new tax sources. Cedarville's residents, who envisioned a village center with wide sidewalks, a landscaped green, and small retail stores, worry that Plymouth's financial straits will eclipse their efforts to control development.

"We do not want to be a i '4, By Robert Preer GLOBE CORRESPONDENT I The second rush-hour train of the afternoon on the Middleborough branch of the Old Colony Railroad left Boston's South Station at 4:45 one day last week and pulled into the downtown Brockton station at 5:24, right on schedule. 1 Sean Garrity, a Brockton dent who lives a mile from the station, was among the roughly two dozen passengers who disembarked. "I like it" said Garrity, as he strode down the station exit ramp carrying his briefcase. "I work in the Back Bay. I used to drive.

It took an hour and 20 minutes every day. What a drag that was." The new Old Colony Railroad is proving to be a hit with commuters. After less than two months of full operation, ridership on both the and Middleborough branches has exceeded the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's projections fof the year 2000. The Kingston line is carrying about 6,100 passengers each weekday, while the Middleborough line's weekday average is 5,200. Before the railroad reopened last fall, state transportation officials had projected ridership to climb gradually to 5,000 on each line over two years.

South suburban residents also are taking the train to Boston on weekends. The average combined Saturday and Sunday ridership now is 5,200 on the Kingston line and 4,150 on the Lakeville branch. "Ridership has skyrocketed," said MBTA spokeswoman Erin Harrington. "We didn't expect these numbers. It's amazing." To keep up with rising demand, the MBTA plans to add four new double-decker coaches later this month.

These will be the Old Colony line's first split-level cars, which are used on the MBTA's other heavily used routes. "Commuters are enthusiastic," said Kingston state Representative Thomas J. O'Brien, whose district includes both the Kingston and Middleborough terminals. "For some, it is a godsend." Brockton Mayor John T. Yunits Jr.

said, "I've ridden the trains and talked to people. They say it has RAILROAD, Page 7 i i involved in those rescue efforts 20 years ago. They all were invited to come, to bring photographs and memories and stories. Monstrous waves swept South, Shore beaches like malicious open-hand slaps across the face, smashing cherished houses into kindling. Thousands of coastal residents would have to be evacuated from their homes, Hull to Plymouth, as tides rose to 12, 14, 16 feet above normal.

Hull was isolated. Only police, firefighters and the National Guard could use the roads. "Beach Avenue was just a crater, it was completely taken away," recalled Hull Fire Chief Nick Russo. "Paragon Park was under seven feet of water. The ocean and the bay met in the middle of Paragon Park." Even media vehicles with all-access passes from the State Police were excluded from Hull, so many people to this day don't realize just how hard hit Hull was, Russo said.

Russo recalled most vividly two fires, two houses that burned to the ground. One was on Town Way, said Russo, and as the fire blazed, a family of six huddled on the front porch praying for rescue. Hull firefighters half-waded, half-swam through water that was five or six feet deep in places to reach the family. "Then they carried them to safety on their shoulders," said Russo matter-of-factly. Two or three days after the snow stopped falling, the ocean's fury had not abated when a house fire broke on Street, 100 yards from Nantasket Beach.

Russo was on the scene with his men quickly, but the fire apparatus couldn't be BLIZZARD, Page 5 Feb. 6 and 7, 1978, the Blizzard of '78, one of the most harrowing storms in Massachusetts history: Twenty-nine deaths, billions of dollars in property damage, chilling memories that even now can send shivers down spines. But even as wild nature gave us its worst, human nature gave us its best. From Hull to Lakeville, Westwood to Plymouth, the people whose lives are dedicated to helping others were needed, and they came through. They were nurses and doctors, firefighters and police officers and DPW truck drivers, National Guardsmen, selectmen and civil defense directors and hundreds or perhaps even thousands of ordinary people.

They helped neighbors, they helped friends, they helped total strangers. This weekend, some of them were gathering to remember the Blizzard of '78, to reminisce about the storm and its aftermath, when it seemed everyone south of Boston was trying to be a Good Samaritan. The Massachusetts National Guard battalion stationed at Weymouth Armory, led by the unit's first sergeant, William Manning, organized a Saturday night Snow Ball at the Weymouth Elks Club. Guard members were invited 5,000 were mobilized for rescue and cleanup work statewide and so, too, were many others GLOBE PHOTO KERRY BRETT KINGSfbk 'It was a real team effort High school students volunteered, and employees volunteered to deliver food trays to patients. That week I arrived at work at 3 or 4 a.m.

because that was when I could get a ride with the National Guard or the police. We had plenty of food in the freezer, we fed everyone. We fed the snow shovelers, the civil defense and the national guard. We also did some special things, like no charge for coffee and muffins WILL! AM MOUSSE, food services director at South Shore Hospital A tW I (3) i Itsh Cedarville 3 e.a WAREHAM Pond ban has cyclists revved Jet ski bylaw also keeping motorcycles off Monponsett ice Set By Alexander Reid GLOBE STAFF fv Old Colony Boy Scouts held their annual Klondike Derby skills competition In the pouring rain last weekend at Camp Squanto in Plymouth. The Flaming Arrow skis and other motorized watercraft on the pond.

Cafarelli believes he is a victim whose favorite recreational pastime has been unfairly outlawed. "The ice has to be about a foot thick before it's really safe," said Cafarelli, 45, who lives a short distance from Monponsett Pond. "It's not like we're out there a lot. I can't see why they came down on us so hard." Last year, Halifax was embroiled in a battle over jet skis and motorboats on Monponsett Pond. Complaints about noise and speed and reckless operation by riders, culminated in a May Town Meeting vote, which approved the bylaw prohibiting jet skis and motorboat operations between dusk and 10 a.m.

Jet skis and motorboats were the main targets. But the bylaw also contained a clause that also banished mo torcyclists from riding across the the fmen pond. In the eyes of bylaw supporters, motorcycles on the MOTORCYCLES, Page 6 Patrol from Boy Scout Troop 105 In Pembroke (from left, Sean Costa, Brian Connors, Eric DeRoche, Dan Chase hidden behind DeRoche, Kevin Marando, and Kevin Wallack) tackled the river crossing event. See Around the Towns, Page 4. HALIFAX Like jet ski noise in the summer, the roar of motorcycles is regarded as a regular nuisance to many wholive around Monponsett Pond.

"Next to jeTskiVthose motorcycles are the loudest thing on earth," said Russell Gardner, who lives within earshot of the pond. "We put up with jet skis in the summer. We get these motorcycles in the winter. There is no rest." The target of Gardner's lament is the handful of motorcyclists, including Halifax resident William Cafarelli, who enjoy high-speed motorcycle races across the frozen pond. Cafarelli is waging a one-man campaign to overturn a ban on his favorite sport.

The prohibition was imposed by Town Meeting last year, during a crackdown on jet GLOBE STAFF PHOTO JOHN IOVEN Reporting on: Abington Avon Braintree Bridgewater Brockton Canton Carver Cohasset Dedham Duxbury East Bridgewater Easton Foxborough Halifax Hanover Hanson Hingham Holbrook Hull Kingston Lakeville Mansfield Marshfield Middleborough Milton Norton Norwell Norwood Pmbroke Plymouth Plympton Randolph Raynham Rowland Scituate Sharon Stoughton Walpole West Bridgewater Wdstwood Weymouth Whitman.