By Philip Sean Curran and Mike Morsch, Staff Writers
Winter storm Stella brought less snow to East Windsor, Hightstown and the region than forecasters had thought, with accumulation totals reaching between five and seven inches, according to the National Weather Service and estimates from local officials., The storm system, which dropped more than a foot of snow in the northern part of the state, tracked closer to the coast and was warmer, said meteorologist Mitchell Gaines on Tuesday., In Hightstown and East Windsor, that meant snow totals far less than the expected blizzard was supposed to bring to the region, of some 14 to 20 inches., “Our estimate was maybe up to six inches,” said East Windsor Mayor Janice Mironov. “East Windsor had no power outages or issues with trees or limbs. However, there was an unrelated incident about 1:45 a.m. with a transformer fire requiring the vacating of 13 units in The Orchard.”, Hightstown residents experienced similar conditions., “We had about seven inches of snow in town,” said Mayor Larry Quattrone, who added that there were no electric problems as of Tuesday afternoon and that rescue squads answered two first aid calls during the storm. “The streets and sidewalks were cleared. All went very well.”, Mayor Mironov said there were no known accidents in East Windsor related to the storm., “The township public works employees were out last night and today preparing the roads and clearing the snow,” she said, “They did a very good job of maintaining our roads and important facilities. Hopefully we can now move on to spring.”, Hightstown had closed its borough offices on Tuesday in anticipation of the storm and rescheduled Tuesday trash pickup to Wednesday. East Windsor had also closed its municipal offices on Tuesday and suspended its Tuesday trash collection, instead rescheduling trash pickup for Friday, March 17., Meteorologist Gaines said there is also a chance of rain and snow Friday night into Saturday., PSE&G spokeswoman Karen Johnson said there were fewer than five customers in Mercer County without power. Overall, there were 16,000 customers statewide without power as of Tuesday, most of whom were in the southern part of the state., NJ Transit said its bus service was suspended Tuesday and train service is operating on a weekend schedule., At Princeton University, morning classes were cancelled, but afternoon and evening classes went on as scheduled, said university spokesman John Cramer. The school was closed for non-essential employees, he said., The university men’s basketball team did not let the storm get in the way of its first trip to the NCAA tournament since 2011. The Tigers left Monday for and arrived in Buffalo, the site of its first round game against Notre Dame on Thursday, the school said.
