Braving the cold

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Hempstead Town Councilman Gary Hudes said the town’s storm response also ran smoothly. During storms, he said, “I’m constantly driving throughout my district, checking the roads. I was out late on Friday; [the trucks] were out late on Friday.”
   
Hudes urged residents to remember that they shouldn’t shovel snow back onto plowed roadways. “Some of these streets had to be redone because of that issue,” he said.
   
Helen Meittinis, the president of Salisbury’s Community Association of Stewart Avenue, said she would like to see side streets north of Stewart Avenue plowed more effectively in future storms. Those roads, she said, are a direct link to W.T. Clarke High School and Middle School for many.
   
Meittinis said she plans to meet with residents soon, and discuss what they could do to better assist local municipalities in post-storm cleanups, such as parking cars in driveways instead of in the streets to enable plows to clear the roads more efficiently. “We all need to help the situation by being better neighbors and doing the right thing,” she said.

No need to cancel school


The East Meadow School District was on holiday recess until Monday, so there was no need to call a snow day. The district canceled sports activities Thursday and Friday, but resumed them on Saturday. Superintendent Louis DeAngelo said that custodians were at the schools on Friday to begin the storm response. “They were able to get clearings done,” he said. “So everything was in order.”
   
With students already off on Friday, the operative question became where they would go sledding. The hilly portion of Eisenhower Park commonly referred to as Sled Hill, just southwest of the Nassau County Aquatic Center, is now a construction site for the Twin Rinks Ice Center, which is expected to open in February. Instead, residents created a new sled course, in between the lake and the Harry Chapin Lakeside Theatre, along the Merrick Avenue side of the park. Dozens of families flocked there as the day went on.

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