BOSTON — Students are set to return to class in Boston after an extended February school vacation, thanks to the Blizzard of ’26 that dumped 17 inches of snow in the city and canceled two days of class.

Mayor Michelle Wu has announced that Boston Public Schools and central offices will reopen on Wednesday, while scores of other districts have called for an extra snow day as they continue to dig out from Monday’s whopper of a storm.

“Thank you to all our City workers for the nonstop hard work to keep everyone safe, and thank you to our residents for doing your part,” Wu said in a statement late Tuesday afternoon.

According to the mayor’s office, city crews have removed 165 loads totaling 4,620 cubic yards of snow, creating piles around schools in preparation for removal. The Public Works Department will continue efforts through the week, anticipating even more snow on Wednesday.

“Because of the intensive efforts during this extended period,” Wu said, “including operationalizing large-scale daytime snow removal for the first time ever, we’ve been able to get ahead of more snow expected tomorrow with major thoroughfares clear and passable.”

Dozens of school districts across the Bay State started calling for an extra snow day earlier on Tuesday. Those closed on Wednesday include Acushnet, Avon, Barnstable, Brockton, Mansfield, Plymouth, Weymouth, among others.

This all comes as southern Massachusetts, particularly Cape Cod and the South Shore, is still coping hard with the wrath of the Blizzard of ’26, as local leaders say cleanup and power restoration efforts could take days.

Before taking an afternoon trip to Cape Cod, where numerous towns had a vast majority of residents without power, Gov. Maura Healey lifted the non-essential travel ban for the hardest-hit Bay State counties: Bristol, Plymouth, Barnstable and Dukes.

“I’m still urging everyone to stay home and off the roads if you can,” Healey stated in a social media post. “Pay attention to local restrictions and parking bans, and drive carefully if you do need to travel. Crews are out in force clearing snow, and utilities are working around the clock to restore power. Let’s give them the space they need to get the job done safely and quickly.”

A number of communities — including New Bedford, Fall River, Brockton and others — still had local travel restrictions and parking bans in place, as of Tuesday evening, after being hit with more than 30 inches of snow.

Along with reopening city schools on Wednesday, Mayor Wu announced that she was lifting Boston’s snow emergency and parking ban at 6 p.m. Tuesday. Residents parked in participating discounted garages had to remove their cars by 8 p.m. to avoid being charged.

The MBTA also announced it’d be restoring regular weekday service across the network on Wednesday, except for the Fall River/New Bedford Line, which is operating on a modified schedule.

Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency local coordinators were reaching out to every city and town in the eastern region on Tuesday to assess needs and deploy available resources.

At Healey’s direction, MEMA requested out-of-state mutual aid to support snow removal operations. Crews and equipment from Vermont arrived Tuesday morning. The governor also activated up to 350 members of the Massachusetts National Guard for further support.

More than 200,000 Bay Staters remained in the dark Tuesday evening, with MEMA’s power outage map showing large chunks of Barnstable and Plymouth counties greatly affected. The total number of customers without power, as of 5:30 p.m., was 214,855.

The smaller Cape Cod towns of Brewster, Provincetown, Truro and Wellfleet all clocked in with 100% of their customers in the dark, according ot the MEMA map. Barnstable and Falmouth, the largest towns in Barnstable County, were still struggling, too, with around 20,000 residents, or higher than 70% of customers, searching for light.

Officials across the region were alerting residents of overnight shelters at Barnstable Intermediate School and Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School, and daytime warming centers at Brewster and Orleans town halls, Chatham Community Center, Provincetown Community Center, Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Community & Government Center, and the Family Table Collaborative in Yarmouth.

Heating issues prompted the closure of an overnight shelter at Nauset High School in Eastham. The Cape Cod Regional Transit Authority is providing free transportation to warming centers and shelters

“We know many residents woke up cold and without power,” the Barnstable County Regional Emergency Planning Committee stated in a morning Facebook post. “Barnstable County is working to share the most important information as quickly as possible.”

In an evening Facebook post, Cape Cod state Rep. Steven Xiarhos reported 150,000 customers across the region without power, as officials are “pushing to get as many residents restored as quickly and safely as possible.”

“With heavy equipment now deployed,” Xiarhos stated in a post around 5:30 p.m., “towns are making steady progress plowing roads and working closely with utility crews to ensure safe access for restoration work.”

Eversource officials say it will take the rest of the week for all 211,000 of its customers who are in the dark to gain power. The company estimates that full service will be restored for the vast majority of that chunk well before 11:59 p.m. Friday.

As of 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Eversource has restored power to more than 185,000 customers since the storm began, including more than 43,000 customers since the morning.

“This is an all-hands on deck, multi-day power restoration effort,” Eversource President of Massachusetts Electric Operations Doug Foley said in a statement Tuesday evening, “and we have a massive work force out in the field with crews from as far as Canada and the Midwest all working toward the same goal of restoring power for our customers.”

“However, even though travel and work conditions are improving,” he added, “there are still some locations in these hard-hit areas that are extremely challenging for our crews to access, with roads still unplowed and impassable or narrowed by snowbanks.”

National Grid crews are also barreling forward with their restoration efforts. The storm caused “extensive damage,” breaking apart nearly 100 utility poles on the South Shore and Nantucket, the company says.

“Since Monday morning, more than 94,000 customers experienced outages, with over 71,000 restored as of 7 a.m. today,” the company stated in a social media post around 12:45 p.m. Tuesday. “More than 561 crews are working today, and we expect most remaining customers to be restored within the next two days.”

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