Think about how annoying it is when one or two of your usual routes is temporarily shut down. That’s happened to every street here — with no end in sight. Car insurance companies are swamped with accident calls. Walking is treacherous: The Massachusetts Avenue Bridge over the Charles River, a major pedestrian artery that links Boston and Cambridge, is still inches deep with snow, but you can’t reach the railings because they are lined with snowbanks plowed in from earlier blizzards.

Working parents are desperate: When classes were canceled, they had to stay home, leave their kids alone or scramble to find child care. Even when the schools are open, many parents can’t work a full day: You drop off the child, spend two hours driving to work and have to leave early to get the child before after-school programs close.

But everybody is desperate. We’re all having to spend time and money we don’t have on plowing, car and house repairs, and heating because of the record-low temperatures. People who survive by holding down additional part-time jobs have had to skip those extra shifts.

Businesses have been hammered: Who’s going out to eat, shop or see a movie? How can businesses manufacture and deliver products or arrange deals if their workers just can’t show up? Some companies can let people work from home occasionally, but not every day for a month. Snow-removal services, roofers, chiropractors, and auto mechanics and body shops will profit — but that can’t possibly make up for what is drained from nearly every other business and household.

And it’s devastating for state and local governments. The City of Boston has spent $35 million on snow removal, more than twice what it had budgeted. That doesn’t include Cambridge or any of the surrounding towns, or the state. It doesn’t include how much it will cost to repair the devastated roads, sidewalks and bridges that will have been worn away by snow, freezing, salt and rust. Incoming tax revenues will fall because business and personal incomes are down. The state government expects to see a drop of $30 million in the next months.

Sure, it’s not the same as an earthquake: The snow will melt, eventually. But that will bring more woes. The flooding will hurt the T, ruin roofs and basements and clog roads still more.

Where are the federal disaster funds, the presidential visit, Anderson Cooper interviewing victims, volunteers flying in, goods and services donated after hurricanes and tornadoes? The pictures may be pretty. But we need help, now.

It’s snowing as I write this. We’re expecting more, along with freezing rain, this weekend. And the misery won’t end even when it all melts.