■A Northampton man narrowly escaped injury yesterday when a truck loaded with hay crashed and overturned onto his car on an iced section of Route 47 near the Hadley-South Hadley line. The truck skidded on a heavily iced stretch of road and struck the front of Robert J. Pascucci’s car with its tailgate and then overturned, scattering hay over the car and road.
■Storm systems that have occupied this area almost continuously since mid-December added variety and a glaze of ice to the mountains of snow as freezing rain hit this section yesterday afternoon and continued through the night, cancelling meetings and closing many schools today.
■The Florence Savings Bank and the Northampton Co-Operative Bank each announced yesterday that they will offer zero interest loans and mortgage deferments to furloughed federal employees and federal employees who are being forced to work without pay due to the current government shutdown.
■The Hampshire Regional YMCA is planning a two-story “family center” addition and renovations to its facility in an effort to relieve overcrowding and improve and expand programs. The project will cost $1.5 million, a major portion of which will be raised in the community through a capital campaign that will begin in late spring and end in September.
■Kollmorgen Electro-Optical has landed another in a series of large contracts from the U.S. Navy — this one valued at $41.2 million — to provide photonics mast systems for eight submarines. “This is a very important contract for us,” said Michael Wall, Kollmorgen’s president. “It’s one of our state-of-the-art products.”
■The Easthampton City Council will enter into a rare executive session this evening to discuss the Manhan River dam fish ladder project. Mayor Michael A. Tautznik said he called for the executive session because he felt the need to update councilors on the project, which is stalled for the foreseeable future because of unexpected costs.