I remember that. It stood out to me, since I’m from MN, where your routine is unchanged by snowfall even were we to get 12 inches at rush hour. But no one treated it like it was crazy, so I didn’t think much of it. Now that I reconsider, I’d guess it was less about controlling the populace than not wanting to pay for plow rental.
The folks, like conservatives, that saw it for what it was - an abuse of gov power - did see it as a serious abuse of power, but no media coverage of those thoughts and discussions. That was relegated to a few pillars of remaining rational discussion in this state. The FR MA blog being one of them.