That 2005 was a great storm. But N RI had an area that received over 50" in the blizzard of '78. I was around for that one living in Randolph, MA at the time. We had close to 4' there, despite what the KU books say. Opening the garage door yielded nothing but snow from top to bottom.
We have underground lines in our neighborhood, but the problem is you are still connected to the same grid that the overhead wires are connected to, so when a tree falls on a line, we lose power here, too. It happens more often than you would think.