Region still reeling after Winter Storm Stella
Local mayors assessing snow clean-up
CAPITAL REGION >> City officials from around the Capital Region are still feeling some of the affects that the area was hit with after last week’s Winter Storm Stella.
The National Weather Service in Albany reported snowfall totals last Tuesday morning ranging from 17.5 inches in Malta and 18.5 inches in Wynantskill to 25.5 inches in Averill Park and 27.2 inches in Lake Desolation, with additional accumulations ranging from a dusting to 4 inches expected Wednesday. The 17 inches measured at the weather service office marked the largest local storm since a Valentine’s Day blizzard dumped just under 17 inches in 2007.
Municipalities throughout the region declared snow emergencies Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday to help with snow removal, but were hampered as some people abandoned their vehicles on streets where they became stuck, while others left them buried in parking spots.
Some municipalities like the city of Cohoes are still posting emergency “no parking” signs on designated streets this week to help remove large snow banks on the side of roads.
“Just because the storm is over and there have been a couple warm days, we are a walking community where a lot of people, especially kids, are walking to school and it’s still freezing at night,” said Morse Wednesday morning. “If you have kids and you see them climbing over a 3 foot snow bank and walking in the road going to school, you quickly realize that it is important to get rid of all the snow so that they have easy access to cross the streets.”
Troy Mayor Patrick Madden said city crews have also been going out still to remove snow from certain intersections where the snow may be blocking a driver’s view.
“If we get calls that we might have an intersection where there is a pile that obstructs view, we will go up and remove that,” said Madden on Wednesday morning. “We are driving around keeping our eye out to see if there are any intersections that we missed or opportunities to push back a little bit further, but at this point it’s melted down considerably, so with each passing day we are doing less and less of that.”
Meanwhile, in the city of Watervliet Mayor Mike Manning also said that the warmer weather has helped to melt some of the snow down, so that crews can focus on clearing out alleyways more.
“It warmed up over the weekend so a lot of snow has melted away,” said Manning.
Each of the three municipalities said that they unfortunately did have residents who didn’t comply with the snow emergency parking restrictions and had to issue tickets and tow away some vehicles. Manning said roughly 25 cars had to be towed for not following the snow emergency protocols, which is down from previous snow emergencies in the city. Morse said roughly 50 cars have been towed in the city since last week and Madden said roughly 100 cars were towed during Troy’s snow emergency.
Each mayor said that they felt residents did comply well with the parking restrictions compared to past snow emergencies, but they all still urged residents to be responsible homeowners and clear snow from sidewalks in front of their homes.
Madden said the last time he could recall city officials having to issue a snow emergency was in 2015, but he said with all the snow this past storm left that he had no other choice but to declare a snow emergency in the city.
“It was pretty apparent as soon the snow stopped and we got a look as to how much snow we got,” explained Madden, “and with how difficult circumstances were, so it was pretty clear that we needed to do some pretty significant snow removal.”
Each of the city officials said that they were pleased with the job its Department of Public Works crew did to help keep the streets as safe as possible during the storm. Some cities like Watervliet and Troy also had some outside help to thank for helping with the snow removal process.
“I may be bias since I am the Mayor of Cohoes, but I think we have the best streets in the Capital Region and that’s certainly a testament to the hard work and dedication of DPW and all of our administrative staff,” said Morse.
Madden said that he reached out to the governor’s office to ask the Department of Transportation for extra help at cleaning some streets.
“We had DOT come in for two days and they brought some terrific equipment,” said Madden. “It was a lot of snow and we needed all the help we could get so it just made sense to reach out and this also helped to keep costs down a little bit.”
Manning said that his city received some extra help during the storm from work-release inmates from the Albany County Jail.
“This past snow emergency we had some workrelease people from the Albany County Jail, thanks to Sheriff Apple,” said Manning. “They were with the police and DPW helping people dig out had they not done so when the plows were coming. All these factors--the police, DPW and help from the work-release-made it probably the most efficient snow emergency even though it was probably the most snow we’ve had to remove in a while.”