PREPAREDNESS KEY AGAINST SNOWSTORM
City was ready for Capital Region’s first snowstorm of season
TROY, N.Y. >> It was the first major snowstorm of the season.
The fall season. Hundreds of schools were closed and extracurricular activities canceled across the Capital Region. Although snow may have come earlier than expected or wanted for some, emergency crews and plows were prepared nonetheless.
“Because Troy has so many hills we were out all last night, we had trucks out salting as the snow was starting and we kept a crew on over the course of the nighttime to keep the streets opened. At 4:00 this morning it looked pretty good but then, of course, another couple of bands of snow came through right in time for the rush hour,” Troy Mayor Patrick Madden said of the city’s proactive approach to the snow storm.
“We were helped by the fact that some people stayed home and that the schools were delayed or closed and allowed our trucks to keep moving around the city,” Maddon added. “I think we did a good job of keeping the main thoroughfares open through the rush hour and then we got onto the side streets and started opening them up.
“We wrapped up with
the thick of it around 1:00 p.m. I think the crews did a good job today, they were rotating in on different schedules so we could keep people out there all of the time.”
Madden also advised people to clear their sidewalks with the advent of freezing weather, be mindful of ice on the roads and to help any elderly neighbors who might need some assistance in shoveling snow and getting around.
“I think we did a good job responding to a tough couple of days of winter weather,” Rensselaer County Director of Operations Rich Crist said of the hard work displayed by crews around the clock. “All of the credit goes to our crews out at the highway department and some of our emergency services dispatchers.
“This was a storm that rolled in about 7:00 p.m. last night and we were out pretty quickly afterward and we had crews working through the night.”
“We’ve got a diverse county with communities along the river and communities in a mountain type- setting, so there’s a lot of ground to cover and a lot of different types of ground to cover and our crews did a really good job,” Crist added. “We’ve heard from a lot of residents today that our crews were out, local officials that were complimentary about the work that was done and what we were able to achieve.
“Our guys are tired but hopefully they know it was a job well done.”
“I think the crews from my perspective jumped on it early, they were prepared for it, so I think it was well handled,” Rensselaer County Sheriff Pat Russo said of the snow removal efforts, which helped prevent any major accidents.
Echoing the sentiments of preparedness was Cohoes Mayor Shawn Morse.
“I think we were well prepared for the storm. Wewere out there early, got our trucks out on the road and we really had very little problems in the City of Cohoes. It was pretty cleared up by the time people were heading out to work,” Morse said. “Our goal is to just pay attention to the weather and always try to be one step ahead if we can do that and I think over a couple of years we’ve been pretty successful.”