The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
DODGING THE WORST OF IT
Blizzard conditions cause few problems in Middletown area
MIDDLETOWN — Wind gusts of up to 26 mph whirled the icy snow into blistering bursts that drove into the faces of those who ventured out in blizzard-like conditions Thursday, but officials said the area had so far escaped major weather-related problems.
By evening, 8.2 inches of snow had fallen in Middletown, according to Weather Underground, with 12 to 18 total inches predicted by the time the system moves along. The National Weather Service activated a wind chill advisory from 1 a.m. Friday to 10 a.m. Saturday.
Schools across the region closed Thursday — and, already by dinnertime, some announced classes would not meet again Friday.
Middletown Public Works plow truck driver Joe Barone began work at 5 a.m. Thursday and didn’t expect to take a real break until 9 p.m. During the long shift, he spent the time making pass after pass with his truck: six, eight, nine on High Street alone in the course of an hour.
Back and forth he drove the lumbering truck along the streets, clearing the sides first, then coming back again and again to plow the middle portion. With the gas pedal floored, he built up enough speed to plow the gutter of the road — a necessary first step, Barone said.
Otherwise, when he goes to clear the middle portion of the roadway, the shelf of snow becomes too large to move with the truck, said Barone, who line stripes city streets in the summertime.
“Sorry, buddy,” Barone said as he made a third pass past a man in a neon-yellow jacket on North Main Street who was shoveling his pathway, sending some snow from the road into the man’s driveway.
“I’m blowing people kisses,” Barone jokes as he goes by.
As he maneuvered the big rig in a circle at the intersection of Prospect and Grand streets, a three-way stop, he blared the horn at a driver who didn’t give him enough berth to turn.
From 6 to 9:30 a.m. Thursday, public works crews had difficulty seeing, Director William Russo said.
“This morning, it was really tough for the drivers — there were whiteout conditions,” he said.
“You’ve really got to watch what’s going on in those conditions, because they really couldn’t see too far in front of them,” Russo said.
“The killer is I couldn’t see 15 feet in front of me,” Barone said, as he stops the truck at the intersection of High and Washington streets, leans out the driver’s side door, and uses a long brush to clear the slushy snow — nearly frozen — from beneath his wiper blades.
“The ice builds up. If I don’t do this, I’ll have to get out and chip it,” said Barone, who also is an assistant baseball coach at Xavier High School in Middletown.
Sometimes when he tries to plow close to the curb, tree branches will thud on the side window. A couple years ago, Barone said, a big smack of slush hit the glass just so, shattering it while he was driving along.
Two things about the job that really test Barone’s patience are the “going around and around and around in circles,” he said, rolling his eyes.
Another that really gets his goat is when, after he’s entirely cleared a street, the one car parked illegally is finally towed, and he has to go back out just to plow the snow that was underneath that vehicle.
Barone will get three hours off, during which he’ll lie down on the futon in the shed at the city yard. “I don’t sleep at 9 o’clock, so you don’t sleep anyway.” He will rest during that time, however. “I just brush my teeth, throw some water on my face and get back to work,” Barone said.
His route is a large one. It includes the North End and Main Street, all the way to Middlesex Hospital. “Sometimes when I see somebody out, I plow their driveway just to be nice,” said Barone, who has been working for the city for 28 years — 18 years of them behind the wheel in the wintertime.
“It gives me peace of mind, time alone to think about life,” he said of the work. “When we get a little — two to three inches — it’s beautiful.
“When it starts coming down three, four, five inches an hour, I can’t keep up with it,” Barone said.
Earlier in the day, Middletown Fire Chief Robert Kronenberger compared the storm to the megastorm that hit Connecticut in late winter last year, dumping as much as 23 inches in the Litchfield area.
“This one I think is similar to the one we had last March and we were able to get through it OK,” he said. “There have been limited accidents, if any. For the most part, it’s nice quiet and routine. I don’t want to jinx it, but we’re in good shape. A lot of times when we get storms like this, a lot of people do heed the warning and stay inside, so our call volumes do go down.”
Portland and East Hampton presented different responses to the storm.
Upon the recommendation of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, Portland First Selectwoman Susan S. Bransfield closed Town Hall and all town offices and urged residents to stay inside — and stay safe.
However, continuing a tradition he has followed since he arrived in East Hampton as manager five years ago, Town Manager Michael Maniscalco had Town Hall remain open. “We’re tough people here in East Hampton,” he said mid-day.
He acknowledged no residents had as yet during the day come into Town Hall. But, he was ready in case they did.
And in the meantime, staff who did report as normal on Thursday were “getting tons of stuff done,” Maniscalco said.
He also kept the library open to serve as an emergency shelter should it be needed.
The Emergency Operations Center was on standby and “all police vehicles were gassed up and ready to go. And that includes the Humvee,” Maniscalco said.
For her part, Bransfield said she was “monitoring conditions with (Fire) Chief (Robert) Shea, who is also our emergency management director. The chief didn’t report any unusual problems,” she said.
“Safety is our No. 1 concern, and we want our customers, our residents, we want everybody to stay safe. And so, the safest thing for today was them to stay inside and for us to be closed,” Bransfield said.
Even as she was saying that, Bransfield said her thoughts were with the emergency service personnel, the police and firefighters and the public works crews who had to be out in often difficult conditions.
“We’re very grateful to our police and fire personnel and our public works crews,” she said.
Over in Cromwell, Town Manager Anthony Salvatore said road crews had been out since 4 a.m. keeping the streets clear. Snow drifting, however, has affected road clearing, he said.
“The main problem we’re encountering is the snow coming down along with the wind. That’s a big factor, because the wind is blowing the snow back into the roadways as we clear them, along with the accumulation of what we’re getting,” Salvatore said.
Meanwhile, Middletown’s parking ban remained in effect through the night. “We have towed, because even if there’s a parking ban and a plow does any damage to a car, it’s still our fault,” Russo said. “It’s been minimal, but there were still cars that were left on the road.”
For years, public works crews dumped collected snow at Veterans Memorial Park after storms, but with the new military museum being built and the Connecticut Trees of Honor there, Russo said, a new, less visible location is being used.
“Once we clean up, we usually haul to the back of Palmer Field now,” Russo said. “It doesn’t bother anybody.”