By Scott Malone and Elizabeth Barber
BOSTON (Reuters) - A record-setting run of snowstorms that has pounded the U.S. Northeast over the past two weeks has taken a heavy toll on Massachusetts, taxing supplies of salt to keep roads clear and leaving authorities running out of places to pile the snow.
Schools were closed across the region on Monday, hundreds of flights were canceled and Boston's transit system was running with severe delays after officials said 73.9 inches (1.9 meters) of snow had fallen on the city so far this season, making it the 10th snowiest winter on record.
At least four buildings collapsed around Boston under the snow's heavy weight, the National Weather Service said, though no injuries had been reported as a result of those incidents.
"These are unprecedented levels of snow that have fallen over the past 14 days, there's no doubt about that," Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker told reporters.
Winter storm warnings were in place from central New York state, though northern Connecticut, southern Vermont and New Hampshire and most of Massachusetts, where municipalities had begun contracting dump trucks to carry the snow away.
Boston officials were hauling the snow to "snow farms" where specialized equipment melts 400 tons of snow per hour.
The repeated storms are starting to take a toll on supplies of road salt in the Northeast, with Morton Salt, one of the nation's largest salt suppliers, running behind on some customer orders, said spokeswoman Denise Lauer.
"Supplies have been challenged," Lauer said, adding that a complicating factor has been that many of the trucks the Chicago-based company would contract to deliver salt have been pressed into service for snow removal.
TRANSIT TROUBLES
Baker asked state residents to avoid travel, but many commuters tried to carry on with their daily lives, unwilling to take what for some would be a sixth or seventh snow day of the winter.
"It's irritating, but I've decided if I'm going to get to work, I have to deal with it," said Gabby Whitaker, 24, as she waited for a bus to take her to her sales job near Boston. "I just have to get through it."
The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, whose aging trains have been hard-hit by the heavy snow and piercing cold over the past week, cut back service on Monday.
A train on the Red Line, Boston's most heavily traveled rail line, got stuck on an above-ground section of track after snow covered the electric third rail. Some 48 passengers were evacuated, according to MBTA spokesman Joe Pesaturo.
The incident prompted MBTA officials to suspend service on that above-ground section of that line, and on some other ground-level sections of track.
Some 19.7 inches (50 centimeters) of snow had fallen on Boston since the storm began early Sunday, according to the National Weather Service, which warned that the snow would likely continue into Tuesday morning.
As cities and towns struggled to find places to pile snow, Massachusetts officials said they had begun granting some exceptions to environmental laws that prohibit dumping snow into waterways, due to the salt and road contaminants it can carry.
"At a time like this, there is literally nowhere else," said Matthew Beaton, the state's secretary of energy and environmental affairs told reporters. "Our snowfields are filling up. There is literally nowhere else to put the snow."
The storm prompted Boston officials to cancel a Monday evening forum where backers of the city's bid to host the 2024 Olympic Games were to discuss their prospects with London Mayor Boris Johnson, in town on a trade mission.
Snowy conditions contributed to more than 1,900 flight cancellations around the United States on Monday, with the largest number of cancellations reported in Boston and at New York's LaGuardia Airport.
"Does it drive me crazy? A bit, yeah," said Deirdre Sheridan, 40, who works as a bartender in Boston as she smoked a cigarette in a doorway, out of the snow. "We should be used to it."
(Additional reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York and Kevin Murphy in Kansas City; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
