Area still cleaning up after Nor'easterDate: 1/18/2011 Jan. 19, 2011
By Katelyn Gendron and G. Michael Dobbs
GREATER SPRINGFIELD — The week after a Nor'easter that dumped as much as 22 inches of snow in Hampden County, residents and businesses are still digging out.
Many schools were closed for a rare two days in a row last week as municipalities tried to clear streets and sidewalks.
Many sidestreets throughout the area remain significantly narrowed with the piles of snow on both curbs.
Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno issued a statement on Jan. 14, saying, "I want to thank the residents and businesses of Springfield for their ongoing cooperation and patience as the city continues to clean up from Wednesday's colossal winter storm."
Agawam
Anthony Sylvia, superintendent of Agawam's DPW, said the most challenging aspect of last week's Nor'easter was the significant number of homeowners and business owners who chose to clear their driveways and parking lots of snow by putting it in the street.
"We spend a lot of time clearing the streets and to have that undone is really not helping anybody," he said. "Snow needs to be contained on their own property."
Sylvia said homeowners must also remember to remove personal belongings such as basketball hoops from roadways.
Seventy vehicles and approximately 90 department personnel and subcontractors were on hand to clear the roadways and sidewalks last week, he noted. "It was really a communal effort," Sylvia added.
Agawam allocated $250,000 for ice control materials for this fiscal year in addition to $111,000 for equipment rentals and $95,000 for overtime expenses.
Chicopee
In Chicopee two days after the storm, the ultimate goal was just to clear the streets, but to improve drivers' visibility and safety by removing piles of snows at corners, Mayor Michael Bissonnette said.
The storm necessitated the use of every piece of equipment owned by the city as well as every private plowing contractor, he said.
The cost of snow removal two days after the storm was between $200,000 and $300,000, the mayor said. He added the approximate cost of snow removal in the city was $15,000 for every inch on the ground.
The city has 1,100 roads and the snow plow drivers worked around the clock with three-hour naps, Bissonnette said.
"They went 72 hours with very little sleep," he added.
The city did one pass on many residential streets and had to return to properly clean them, he said.
Bissonnette had allocated $100,000 for snow removal, but had reserved $1 million out of the city's free cash to pay for any additional costs. He noted that the more snow that falls this year, the greater impact on the city's reserves.
Springfield
This Nor'easter is one for the record books according to Al Chwalek, the director of Springfield's Department of Public Works (DPW).
"It was more than a greater challenge [for the DPW], Chwalek told Reminder Publications on the morning of Jan. 13, the day after the storm hit Western Massachusetts. "It pushed our capacity to the absolute limit."
Chwalek said this storm was "second only to the blizzard of 1978." He reported an accumulation of 22 inches at his home in the 16 Acres section of the city.
"It's just too much snow," he said.
As Chwalek spoke, some sections of the city had yet been plowed out and reports gathered through Facebook by this reporter from city residents varied greatly.
One resident wrote, "It is now 8 a.m. on Thursday morning and I can't get down my street. I thought with this amount of snow I would give the city through the night to get the streets done before I became annoyed. I am annoyed. My street is a cut through so I will have to assume all the smaller streets in the neighborhood didn't get plowed out either."
Another wrote, "I live in the Brightwood area and our street had a plow on it about 8 a.m. It made a path for people to get out if need be. Then around 10:30 a.m. three plows come down the street. Of course, we always have to have one person not abiding by the rules and the plows went around their car out in the street and now we have a snow bank twice the size of our tree belt out in front of our house. You can't even see the fire hydrant unless one is standing in front of our driveway. I really wish they would ticket and tow these individuals that don't follow the parking ban rules."
Parking impeded the plows' progress, Chwalek said, as too many people parked their cars in front of their driveways to avoid the plows pushing snow into the entrance.
Another resident registered his frustration over the enforcement of the parking bans through Facebook. "We had a plow show up in the a.m. However, there is a car currently parked on my street, which prevented part of the street (in front of my house and another neighbor's) from being plowed. The snowplow had to go around him and, in so doing, plowed our driveway in (moreso that normal). A neighbor called the police to report the traffic violation and, supposedly, the thing was going to get towed. Twenty to 25 minutes later another plow comes through, drives around it and viola, plows us in again! The neighbor, and I think my dad, too, called up to report it again and nothing has happened yet. What good is a parking ban if it is not enforced?"
Others praised the DPW efforts.
"We received an initial pass at around 9 a.m. Enough to get down the street if we really had to which, thankfully, we did not. Second pass came at about 5:30 p.m. and cleaned the street right to the curbs! Great job! We cleaned out the end of the driveways and are ready to head to work in the morning. Honestly couldn't ask for more. I'd give DPW an A+ on this one!" one resident wrote.
Chwalek explained the city has access to 180 vehicles to clear snow between its own inventory and private contractors. The problem with a snow with accumulations of this height, he said, is more than half of the snowplows are pick-up trucks that can only handle 10 inches or so of snow.
When a snow surpasses 10 inches, the trucks are "absolutely useless."
The DPW efforts concentrated on main streets in the city and drivers worked about 18 hours before closing down about 9 p.m. on Jan. 12, Chwalek said.
The problem is there was three-foot-tall wind rows at the end of many residential streets, he noted, that could only be addressed by the largest equipment the department had.
The challenge the day after the storm, besides finishing the residential streets, is to push back snow banks that are up to four-feet high, Chwalek said.
DPW personnel were working with the police, fire department and ambulance officials in making sure emergency services could reach residents. Chwalek explained a piece of heavy equipment would "punch a hole" in an unplowed street. DPW workers did that about 25 times during the storm.
Chwalek said the cost for cleaning after this storm would be "incredibly expensive" but was not an issue at this time.
West Springfield
One giant storm can decimate a municipality's snow and ice removal budget; just ask Jack Dowd, director of West Springfield's DPW.
"You pretty much throw cost out the window," he said. "You have enough money to start the season . if this last storm did put me over [budget] I'm nearly there. It's an awful expense for something Mother Nature will eventually take care of."
West Springfield budgeted approximately $390,000 for its snow and ice division this fiscal year, including $240,000 for supplies, $90,000 for contract services and $45,000 for overtime.
During a snowstorm, Dowd explained, the town's 116 miles of road are broken down into five sections with 40 vehicles responsible for plowing and sanding.
He said the most challenging district to clear is the Merrick Neighborhood because of the abundance of on-street parking and dense layout. Department personnel were out for a total of 16 hours clearing roadways on Jan. 12 and then spent the next two days "answering isolated complaints," Dowd added.
Westfield
More than 45 subcontractors and Westfield DPW personnel spent 18 hours on the roads plowing and sanding to ensure drivers and pedestrians safe passage after last week's storm. Jim Mulvenna, director of the Westfield DPW, said his crews also answered several complaints from property owners of decreased visibility due to snow mounds, while receiving "quite a few accolades" for their efforts in the process.
"I'm fortunate that I have a good group of guys that they get rested up the night before and they just put their best foot forward," Mulvenna said.
The city budgeted $400,000 for snow and ice removal in this year's operating budget but the total cost is usually between $1 million and $1.5 million, according to City Councilor Christopher Keefe of the Finance Committee.
That figure does not necessarily include damage to property, which are reviewed by the city's law department on a case-by-case basis, Mulvenna said. "Homeowners can be reimbursed for $50 but no more," he added.
Mulvenna noted the Westfield DPW, like many other communities, also had to deal with homeowners and business owners clearing snow from their driveways and parking lots into the street. "We had a handful of those incidents and we notify the police department," he said.
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