A mammoth snowstorm rocked Mineola last Monday Jan. 26, wreaking havoc on the afternoon commute, stretching into the wee hours of Tuesday Jan. 27. More than 17 inches of fresh powder fell on the village, according to the National Weather Service.
“We approached it like any other storm,” Mineola’s Public Works Superintendent Tom Rini said.
The Village of Mineola began blizzard prep work on Sunday, Jan. 25, notifying residents to remove cars from village streets. According to Mineola’s village code, all vehicles must be off the streets if two inches of snow or more are forecast.
“They were estimating two feet and we ended up getting a little more than half of that,” Mayor Scott Strauss said. “It was still significant snow. I’m glad that people saw the significance of getting cars off the roads.”
Garbage collection was suspended until last Wednesday. Rini feels New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo’s statewide car ban imposed the night before the storm helped streamline the local cleanup.
The DPW had 14 plow trucks canvassing Mineola, according to Rini. Two front-end loaders handled parking fields, spots near the Long Island Rail Road Station and Village Hall.
“We pushed out emails, text messages, [broadcast] on channel 18 and put information on the village website,” Strauss said. “It seemed to have worked. There were very few cars out on the roads that the plows had to work around.”
Village crews sent salt brine trucks out on Monday before the storm hit, Rini said. Toward the afternoon, a few plows were deployed. Mineola then sent out its full fleet to combat the storm.
“We broke off when it started to get silly around 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday,” Rini said. “Winds were blowing snow sideways. The guys were plowing for six or seven hours at that point. We sent them in for a rest. Then at 5:30 a.m. we were back at it before people started moving.”
Rini said Mineola was still treating roads with salt on Jan. 28.
After the storm’s blustery winds receded, Cuomo lifted the traveling ban in Nassau County, but Mineola’s parking ban remained in effect until last Wednesday morning. Rini feels the clearing crews move best when cars are off the street.
“I would say 95 percent cooperation,” Rini said of resident compliance with the car ban. “I think with the [Cuomo] ban and our code, people really woke up. The potential of the big storm made everyone wise up.”
The aftermath of the storm, for Rini, is a test since some residents clear the snow from their property into the street.
“Throw it on your lawn,” he said.
In early 2014, Long Island was hit with multiple snowstorms, leaving much of the area in a standstill. Last week’s storm, while strong, can be managed as long as additional storms don’t roll in.
“Those storms were back-to-back,” he said. “You never got a break. The problem when you get a storm like this, if there’s no time for the wind-rows of snow we get on the sides [of the roads] to melt down, there comes a point when it’s higher than the plows and the widths of the streets start to shrink.”