At least five Long Island municipalities are running low on road salt and have requested assistance from the state to refill depleting inventory as another storm threatens to blast the area, state officials said.
The state will provide 400 tons of salt to LI for the approaching storm, which is forecasted to dump up to 5 inches on parts of the Island beginning midnight Wednesday.
As of Tuesday afternoon, two villages—Lindenhurst and Mineola—and three towns—Oyster Bay, North Hempstead and Hempstead—have requested additional salt from the state, the governor’s office said.
Local crews have been battling a number of significant winter storms since early January, when more than a foot of snow fell on the Island and spawned blizzard-like conditions.
Another storm hit LI on Monday, dropping up to 10 inches of snow, which forced schools to close across the Island. So far, 40.6 inches has been dumped on Long Island this winter season, according to the National Weather Service.
A spokesman for the Town of North Hempstead said they were “running a little bit low,” but he couldn’t say definitively how much salt the town has used this winter. He noted that the town ordered a shipment of 150 tons of salt from its provider for Wednesday’s storm, but said if another storm strikes this weekend, as some are predicting, then they will need to again replenish their supply.
He added that the town also ordered 6,000 more tons of salt.
Mike Deery, a spokesman for the Town of Hempstead, said they have approximately 23,000 tons of salt on hand, which he believes is enough for at least three more storms. The town received a shipment of 2,000 additional tons on Tuesday, he said.
Still, the town asked for assistance to shore up its supply, adding that Hempstead was “grateful” for the offer.
The state said LI has experienced an “above-average number of winter storms this season.” The New York State Department of Transportation has already used 46,000 tons of salt on LI, which state officials said exceeds the average of 30,000 tons it uses per winter.
The National Weather Service issued a winter storm warning for parts of Nassau and Suffolk counties from midnight to 6 p.m. Wednesday.
