By Bill Slocum
Contributing Editor
For town Highway Superintendent Joe Roberto, the scenario is reminiscent of a line from an old science-fiction movie: Keep watching the skies!
Charged as he is with oversight of hundreds of miles of town road, he knows how costly a snowy winter can be. And this weekend threatens to make up for a largely snowless winter, as forecasts indicate a major storm may be approaching.
“We monitor and listen to various weather services with keen interest,” Roberto said Wednesday morning. “At this point in time, they are saying the storm may track south of Connecticut, toward the Tidewater region. We would be on the northern fringe of that.” Roberto added that the storm, at whatever level of intensity, is expected to reach Greenwich by “the late daylight hours” on Saturday.
About two and a half of snow has fallen thus far this winter, mostly the product of two moderate snowfalls, the most recent of them last Sunday. “So far, we are fortunate as far as snow and ice control goes, but we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves,” Roberto said. “This time last winter, there wasn’t much snow to clear, either.”
Last winter, a late run of heavy snow required an additional appropriation of $670,000, above the $850,000 already budgeted for road clearance and maintenance, according to town Budget Director Roland Geiger.
“When we have greater than average snowfalls, like we did last winter, and two winters before, you can spend almost a million dollars over what you budget,” Roberto noted. “Those are the years you have to go back and cover expenses.”
Much of the cost for fighting snow is built into the budget already in the form of purchasing fresh stocks of rock salt, sand, ice melt, and snow shovels. But the more snow falls, the more cost it entails. And those costs can be especially high depending on when snow falls.
“Our biggest savings is if we don’t have snow on weekends, or holidays,” Roberto said. “We’ve had Christmas Days where it started snowing right when we were putting out the Christmas goose. We had to stop and go out right then.”
Greenwich oversees one of the larger road infrastructures in the state. While three of its biggest roadways, Interstate-95, the Merritt Parkway, and the Post Road, are state-owned and managed, the town is charged with maintaining 265 miles of public road, 33 commercial parking lots, and 14 public schools and other Board of Education properties.
In addition to snow, the town Highway Division also must clear ice on roads when temperatures dip below 32 degrees, regardless of snowfall. Dealing with what Roberto called “ice control,” either from snow thaw or freezing rain, can be a critical piece of a winter’s work.
“Last year, we had 70 inches of snow, and 29 ice-control days,” Roberto said. “You can have a situation where there’s a 12-inch snowfall, and you may be doing ice control for two or three days after, as the snow melts and the resulting water freezes over.”
What if the winter of 2015-16 proves as mild going out as it was coming in? Roberto said that would allow for an early start on needed spring maintenance projects, such as sidewalk repair, road sweeping, and culvert clearing. Not to mention less strain on the overall budget.
Roberto sees hope in the El Niño weather pattern in the central Pacific, which has a warming effect on the Northeast and is reportedly quite strong this year. But he added there is plenty of winter ahead.
“We are vigilant about snow until Tax Day,” he said. “We don’t put the plow away until then.”
