Despite travel ban during blizzard, dozens of vehicles were stranded, two highway workers injured

Despite a town-wide travel ban during Saturday’s blizzard, Riverhead highway crews lost at least four hours of plow time during the storm while pulling out more than 40 stranded vehicles that had become stuck in snow drifts.

Two highway department employees were even injured attempting to pull stranded cars from the snow – one man cracked his ribs, and the other man injured his back.

“They’ll be out for a month,” highway superintendent Gio Woodson said today. “I’m short two guys now because some people decided not to listen to what they were supposed to do.”

Riverhead declared a state of emergency around 10 a.m. Saturday as the snowstorm began to intensify, banning all non-emergency travel on local roads. Suffolk County and New York State also issued travel bans at 2:30 p.m. that afternoon.

But there were still drivers getting stuck in snow drifts throughout the storm. Woodson said his highway crews were forced to abandon plowing routes to pull stranded vehicles out of the snow, which made it difficult for his plows to keep up with the heavy rate of snowfall from the blizzard, which peaked at rates of several inches per hour.

The burden of pulling out stranded vehicles makes a strenuous job even more grueling, Woodson said. “You’re getting beat up by 60 mile per hour winds, standing out in the open, pushing out cars,” he said.

And, even more importantly, it’s dangerous.

One employee cracked his ribs when he slipped and fell off his machine while trying to a hook up a stranded car to a chain. Another fell flat on his back while digging out a vehicle on Horton Avenue.

“People just don’t want to listen, and this is what happens,” Woodson said. “My guys got hurt because of them.”

The loss of two men from the already short-staffed highway department will make things even harder during future snowstorms this winter. The department has just 30 employees responsible for more than 415 lane miles of town roads, down from 47 employees in 1984, when there were considerably less roadways in town.

Short staffing also means it’s not possible for Woodson’s employees to work in shifts. Highway department crews worked “straight through the storm,” he said, with just one three-hour break. They began plowing at 4 a.m. Saturday morning, returned to the highway department around midnight Sunday to rest for about three hours, and were back on the roads by 4 a.m. Sunday.

“It’s not a great rest – you’re sitting in a chair trying to sleep,” Woodson said. “But it’s better than nothing.”

He sent his crews home to sleep around 1:30 p.m. Sunday once all the town’s roads were passable. They would start fresh Monday morning to push any residual snow and ice off the roadways.

“You get a lot of calls that people’s roads weren’t plowed, but they were just plowed earlier in the storm,” Woodson said. “They were passable, but they weren’t plowed down to the asphalt, so people aren’t happy. People don’t understand that it’s a process that takes a couple days.”

He explained that snow that’s been packed onto the asphalt needs to be broken up by salt. Once it’s broken down, a plow can come through and clean it up; otherwise, the plow is simply riding on top of the snow.

“It’s a two- or three-day process sometimes,” he said. “That’s why we tell people to prepare.”

Main Street will be closed tomorrow between 7 a.m. and 1 p.m. while highway crews clean any residual snow and ice from the roadway. On Thursday, they plan to focus on Polish Town and some areas in Jamesport, Woodson said.

“We do the best we can do with what we have,” he said.

Travel bans and states of emergency weren’t always declared for major snowstorms. “It always just used to be a snow emergency,” said Riverhead Police Chief David Hegermiller. “I think people take a state of emergency more seriously. There’s more compliance when that’s done.”

Woodson agreed. “People were better this time,” he said. “But regardless of whether they get better or not, you still have those people who come out on the roads, and that’s what hinders your operations. You lose three or four hours just trying to get people out.”