Travel remains treacherous on local roads this morning, Riverhead Highway Superintendent George Woodson warned residents.
In a phone interview as Woodson operated a snowblower truck along Sound Avenue at 6 a.m., Woodson said all roads have been opened but blowing snow continues to drift across roads, particularly in the town’s farm belt.
“Remember this started as rain, freezing rain and sleet before the heavy snow fell, so there’s going to be ice on the roads until the sun comes up and we can get some salt down,” Woodson said. “Meanwhile we are dealing with the drifts.”
The blizzard yesterday dropped 10.5 inches of snow in Riverhead, 11.8 inches in Mattituck and 13 inches in Orient, according to National Weather Service data. Snowfall totals ranged from 10 to 16 inches across Suffolk.
Town highway crews, operating 30 to 32 trucks, started out sanding and salting roads before dawn yesterday, plowed until about midnight last night and then returned to work to man the plows again at 4:30 this morning, Woodson said.
Crews concentrated keeping the main town arteries open throughout the storm.
“Our biggest problem, once again, were people on the roads getting stuck,” Woodson said. “Stuck cars and trucks get in the way of us doing our jobs,” he said.
Town crews began plowing side streets and developments at about 4 p.m. yesterday, after the heavy snow stopped falling, the superintendent said.
Woodson urged residents to stay off the roads again today, especially this morning.
“If you have to drive, leave plenty of time and drive very slow,” Woodson said. “If you go 25 or 30, you should be fine. Faster than that, you’re going to have problems.”
Riverhead schools and schools across the island are closed again today. See updated list of closings, cancellations and delays.
PSEG is reporting scattered outages on the North Fork this morning. A handful of customers in Aquebogue are without power and 28 customers in Orient remain in the dark. A total of 40 customers are without power on Long Island early this morning, according to the utility’s online outage map. All are in eastern Suffolk. Most are expected to be restored by 2 p.m., according to PSEG. (To report an outage and receive updates, go to outagemap.psegliny.com, use MyAlerts text message service and text OUT to PSEGLI (773454) or call the 24-hour electric service number at 1-800-490-0075.)
The National Weather Service forecast is calling for sunny skies with highs of about 30 degrees today.
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