There was virtually no break for town crews wrapping up this season’s scheduled road repairs and resurfacing work as they were called to respond to a protracted winter storm that walloped the region between December 1-3.

As town highway workers geared up for another overnight system rolling in December 10, First Selectman Dan Rosenthal and Department of Public Works Director Fred Hurley told The Newtown Bee that the nature and duration of winter storm Abel that hit nine days earlier tapped the department’s winter storm budget for more than $85,000 in materials and overtime.

“Unfortunately, our mix of sand and salt kept washing off the roads, so we had to constantly be out there re-treating and plowing,” Mr Hurley said. And since the storm began dropping snow around noontime on December 1 and required crews to be out overnight on Monday, December 2 as well, local crews were subject to overtime and weekend compensation — increasing the overall clean-up expense.

For storm Abel, most of the heavy equipment clearing Newtown roadways was putting down a 50/50 mix of sand and costly treated salt. Mr Hurley said for this budget cycle, his department was able to stock up on sand that cost about $24 per ton, while the treated salt being used in the mix ran closer to $70 per ton.

Over the course of what is actually designated as two-storm events by the DPW, personnel overtime exceeded 700 hours and sapped almost $33,000 from the overtime budget.

“If there was any upside, there was a short break in the middle of the storm that gave crews a five to six hours window of rest,” Mr Hurley said.

A December 11 storm system activated DPW crews again, this time at 2:30 am, tallying up another $4,737 in overtime and utilizing more than $16,000 in sand and salt.

Road Work Wraps

Ahead of Thanksgiving, local crews and vendors worked right up to the holiday completing all the scheduled local road maintenance and repairs they could before state asphalt plants closed for the winter. Mr Hurley previously said that only a single plant remains open through the winter and only supplies costly asphalt to state and municipal highway departments for emergency work.

Cold weather is also not conducive to the successful application of overlay materials, Mr Rosenthal said, so all but emergency work and pothole filling takes place before spring brings warmer temperatures and the opportunity to finish off any resurfacing work that is started in the fall, or is delayed.

Work is either still planned for, in progress, or completed on the roughly four dozen local roads scheduled for resurfacing, drainage, patch paving, or chip sealing.

Roads still scheduled for work in the spring are: Lazy Brook Road (drainage), Nunnawauk Road (drainage and paving), High Bridge Road (patch paving), Crestwood Drive (drainage work completed, patch paving scheduled for spring). Walker Hill, Old Bethel Road, and Bennett’s Bridge are scheduled for patch paving in the spring.