Winter's not over, Long Island

Snow storms have been all-too familiar for Long Island over the past couple months, with the pinnacle being the Dec. 26 blizzard, and it seems the Town of Hempstead's snow-related duties have improved with all the practice.

Susie Trenkle-Pokalsky, press secretary for the Town of Hempstead, said the town prepared in advance for Wednesday’s storm, which is expected to last until mid-Thursday. The town began sending trucks to salt at 7 a.m. Wednesday, and employed more than 200 pieces of equipment on the roads, Trenkle-Pokalsky said.

She also said the town isn’t too concerned about it’s snow budget for the year.

“This is obviously only the second storm on this budget, so we are still looking good,” Trenkle-Pokalsky said. However, “it’s difficult to say how much the storm will impact the budget because we have no idea of how long it will last or how much snow there will be,” she said. “Our primary concern is the clean-up and then we worry about the budget afterward. We are in good financial shape, and we do have reserves that we can go into at any point if we have to.”

She added that the town has budgeted nearly $2.5 million for snow-related events for fiscal year 2011, which began on Jan. 1, and has spent nearly $1.35 million so far.

Michael Jaime, president of the Elmont board of education, said all schools in the Sewanhaka Central High School, Franklin Square Union Free and Elmont Union Free school districts are open today, but all regularly scheduled elementary after-school activities have been canceled. The high schools are currently administering regents, mid-term and final exams, Jaime added.