First Person: Taking Shelter from Winter Storm Nemo in Eastern Massachusetts

Yahoo! News is gathering brief first-person accounts, photos and video from the severe winter weather in the northeastern United States. Here's one resident's story.

FIRST PERSON | CHELSEA, Mass. -- It's 10 p.m. in Chelsea, a small city just north of Boston, and nine and a half inches of snow have accumulated in what's being called Winter Storm Nemo.

Snow covers all of my windows. The only sounds my companion and I hear are the wind whipping outside and the occasional rumble of a plow or wail of a fire engine siren. Gov. Deval Patrick ordered all non-emergency vehicles off the road after 4 p.m., the first time that's happened since the infamous Blizzard of '78, so the roads are virtually empty. We spotted a swerving SUV attempting to brave the storm this evening, but the storm was clearly winning.

Everything is closed, even the 24-hour McDonald's just down the street that never closes. There's nowhere to go, and no logical way to get there, so there's nothing much to do but wait out the storm. My companion and I -- along with most of Chelsea and the surrounding towns, apparently -- did all of our grocery shopping last night, so we're well-stocked with food and making the best of a nice, (mostly) quiet Friday at home. Since this afternoon I've made dinner, done yoga, played with my cat, snuggled, watched reruns of 'Big Bang Theory' and 'Ghost Adventures' and tuned into weather reports that tell us what we already know -- it's windy, cold and the snow is falling fast.

We've been going outside every hour to take pictures and measure accumulation; the snow is falling at about two and a half inches an hour now. The conditions are ghastly, but in a sense they're also magical. My mother was pregnant with me during the Blizzard of '78, so this is the first storm of this magnitude I've experienced firsthand, and it brings with it a sense of childlike excitement. Even my cat has been peering out the window in wonder, trying to figure out what's going on.

We're keeping our fingers crossed that we don't lose power, and that when we wake up tomorrow, my car won't be completely buried beneath the snow. But whatever the outcome, this blizzard a great excuse to spend a cozy evening with a loved one and appreciate the shelter from the storm.