While Monday’s blizzard had communities to the south confronting historic snowfall that in some areas approached three feet in accumulation, Needham appears to have come through relatively unscathed.
The town’s first responder departments expressed their appreciation to residents for mostly keeping off the streets and giving crews free rein to handle the 18 inches (as of 5 p.m.) that began falling late Sunday.
“People are staying home — which is exactly what we want,” Department of Public Works Director Carys Lustig said during an interview early Monday afternoon from the DPW’s spartan storm command center at 500 Dedham Ave.
Police and Fire officials were likewise grateful and reported no significant storm-related incidents.
“It seems like most people listened about staying in,” said Assistant Fire Chief Donald Anastasi, who reported no serious issues. “I think that’s great that everybody heeded the warnings and stayed off the roads and the parking to give the DPW and everybody the chance to clean.”
The same was true at the Needham Police station, where Deputy Chief Chris Baker reported a lower than usual call volume. “I think maybe we lucked out a little bit.” He noted six reports of wires down, which was fewer than in other storms.
The town’s schools and non-emergency public facilities were closed, as were most private businesses. A townwide street parking ban that went into effect at midnight Sunday had a high level of compliance. It will be lifted at 7 a.m. Tuesday. The Town Clerk’s office will be open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Tuesday — the statutory deadline for local town election candidates to return their nomination papers — but all other non-emergency town offices will be closed.
| Schools to be closed Tuesday Needham schools will be closed again Tuesday as the cleanup continues, not so much because of local conditions but due to more regional concerns. School Superintendent Dan Gutekanst said he “was all set to have a delayed opening to give everybody time to clean up, shovel and take their time to get to school. I like to wait because I think our DPW and building maintenance do a good job and they were going to be ready for tomorrow with a two-hour delay. “I know that every district around us already cancelled, but quite frankly other districts are too quick to cancel.” Gutekanst said conditions far from Needham ended up driving his decision. “The deciding factor was Governor Healey’s continuing state of emergency and the fact people in three counties (Bristol, Plymouth and Barnstable) were told not to drive. So we have staff from all three counties who would literally face a fine for driving to work.” Gutekanst is aware that when “school/no school” decisions are a close call, it’s inevitable that he’s going to disappoint people regardless of which choice he makes. “I don’t care if people are angry or happy. Doesn’t matter to me. What’s important is that I make a plausible decision and that it’s safe to come to school.” |
The DPW benefitted from decent lead time provided by the storm having been literally on their radar and forecast to be a significant event. Late last week, Lustig said, some forecasts thought the storm might head out to sea, “but by Friday, they had a pretty good idea that this was going to be something serious.”
This allowed the DPW to pre-treat the roads and have a full complement of DPW staff and outside contractors standing by when the snow arrived around 10 p.m. “The first few hours of snow was light but then around 2 a.m. it transitioned over to the heavy snow,” Lustig said.
By heavy, Lustig was referring to both its volume and texture. Unlike the light and fluffy powder that lessened the impact of the 22 or so inches that fell in late January, the recent storm provided a wetter, more formidable mass despite the lower quantity of total snowfall.
“We’re running into more issues this time with the snow being more challenging. That’s leading to more damage,” she said of needing to pull pieces of equipment temporarily out of service for repairs.
“Because this snow is wet and it has had time to be compacted and run over, it’s creating a snowpack that makes it very difficult to get down to that base layer and actually contact the pavement with the plow,” said Tyler Gabrielski, the DPW’s director of streets and transportation.
Following the playbook
As with every snow event, the DPW followed the playbook that has been nurtured for decades by Erik Lannigan, the DPW’s assistant superintendent for highways. A handful of four-inch thick three-ring binders are full of street and sidewalk plow route maps, equipment and supply inventories and town policies and protocols for handling different types of public right of ways and private ways.
“That was about three pages when I started 30 years ago,” Lannigan said.
The plan contains 28 plowing routes, with five crews assigned to the town’s main arterial roads — Central Ave. Highland Ave., Great Plain Ave., Webster St., Chestnut and Chapel Sts. , Greendale Ave. to Hunting Road to Gould Street, South Street, Charles River St and Grove St.
Another segment of routes are the town’s “collector” roads. They are not as well-travelled as arterial roads but they “collect” traffic from local streets and distribute it to the arterial roads or highways.
Crews are also assigned to school and municipal parking lots. There are sidewalk crews that focus on school walking routes, as well as crews who work with hand tools for handicap ramps and other smaller spaces.
The command center has a rather retro magnetic board on one wall that lists every route and has a magnet for every piece of equipment with the operator’s name. Gabrielski said the board is for easy reference and supplements the DPW’s SNOW OPS digital platform. SNOW OPS captures key data such as hours worked by contractors, supply levels and equipment status.
Cleaning up is hard to do
Once the roads are considered cleared, the DPW shifts to snow removal mode, a process that can take days or even weeks to complete. It includes re-plowing to widen roads, knocking down snow piles that obstruct driver views and pushing in corners to improve safety at intersections.
The DPW was only slightly removed from tending to the aftermath of the late January storm when it was alerted to the forecast for the blizzard.
Lannigan said the removal effort after the January storm required two overnight nine-hour shifts. It took 38 haul trucks and 10 loaders to haul the collected snow to a storage area at the RTS.
“We really don’t have any place to put the snow,” Lustig said of the lack of available space around town to offload the snow that’s removed from the streets, parking lots and sidewalks.
Then there are the budget impacts, which are expected to be considerable in this fiscal year.
Like all municipalities, Needham begins each fiscal year with a bare-bones snow removal allocation.
“It’s the only thing you’re allowed to deficit spend in a municipality because you never know how much snow you’re going to get,” she said.
“I’ve been here 20 years. I think there’s been maybe two years we’ve been below budget for snow and ice. So it’s not uncommon.”
Lustig said this year’s shortfall could require a request to the Finance Committee for as much as $1.5 million from the town’s reserve funds thanks to more than 50 inches of snow to date — and with more possible snow in the forecast for the weekend.
Save as PDF