A winter storm anticipated to cause significant snowfall lived up to its expectations when it blew through town on Tuesday, February 13.

Newtown received a foot of snow overall, according to Public Works Director Fred Hurley.

He said that the snow was already starting to “spit down” around 2 am when members of the Public Works Department gathered at their building and began preparing for the storm.

“You started to get real snow closer between 3 to 3:30 am,” Hurley said. “And then when it really started coming down, it was coming down.”

Hurley said the snow was coming down at about one or two inches an hour and that by rush hour there was a lot of snow on the ground.

“A lot of the cancellations were the right call because otherwise it would’ve been a very difficult morning rush,” Hurley continued. “There hadn’t really been time to clear the roads because as fast as you were plowing it off, the snow was building up again.”

Schools were closed on Tuesday, a decision that had been announced by Monday evening, well ahead of the storm's arrival.

The February 13 storm was over by 1:30 pm and Public Works Department employees were “going home with everything done” by 6:30 pm. Hurley attributes this to the department’s experience, good equipment, and preventative maintenance measures.

“We don’t have shifts here,” he said. “When the guys come in, they’re here until the job is done. We’ve spent days in this garage with certain storms where it feels like it goes on and on, and that can be tough. But this [storm] was not too bad.”

The Public Works Department also had help from Parks and Recreation, who worked to help clear snow from various parking lots, Hurley said.

'One Big Break'

One of the issues the Public Works Department typically faces with snowstorms like this is wind knocking tree limbs down. Hurley said that their “one big break was that we didn’t get wind.”

“And the reason I’m saying that is because these trees were covered in snow,” he continued. “The problem with that is if the wind had really started to pick up, we would’ve had a lot of tree limbs go down. That didn’t happen this time. We had no tree complaints during the storm, and that’s unusual.”

According to Hurley, the storm also did not cause any road closures. There were also no reported major electrical outages, according to Newtown Police Lieutenant Scott Smith.

First Selectman Jeff Capeci said "it went well" in response to a question concerning Town crews and the storm.

“[Public Works] did a good job. I think residents pretty much were spared of electrical interruptions," he added. "So overall I think we fared well.”

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Reporter Jenna Visca can be reached at jenna@thebee.com.