By Angela Marshall and Jonathan Cronin
Instead of tooling around town looking for post-holiday bargains, Five Towns residents were shoveling themselves out of about a foot of snow. The massive snowstorm that blanketed most of the east coast on Saturday, Dec. 30 deposited between 10 to 16 inches in Nassau County and left a trail of fender-benders, stuck cars, closed stores and sore backs in its wake.
The storm came earlier than expected, dumping more than four inches by 8 a.m. By mid-morning much of the metro area was paralyzed as the snow kept falling. Banks, stores and other businesses closed their doors and sent workers who had made the dangerous trek in home.
Despite well-publicized warnings by officials to stay at home, many residents were out on the slick roads early Saturday morning, making the job of clearing the storm harder for government workers.
Fourth Precinct police received reports of a dozen accidents over the weekend in the Five Towns and surrounding areas. The accidents were the fender-bender variety, resulting in no major injuries, said Police Officer Domenick Stanganelli.
Nassau County and the Town of Hempstead each deployed a small army of plows and other snow-clearing equipment on the streets. Villages like Lawrence, Rockville Centre, Valley Stream and Lynbrook also put their plows to the pavement to get the streets clear in time for New Year's Eve revelers.
Vicki Abbani, a Woodmere resident who lives in Saddle Ridge Estates on Midway, said the town did an awful job of snow removal on Central Avenue in Woodmere. Workers in the Village of Cedarhurst did a much better job of clearing snow on Central Avenue in Cedarhurst. She added that the difference between where the incorporated village ends and Town of Hempstead begins is "like night and day." "The roads have been touched very little [in Woodmere]," she said.
Abbani said that on Saturday night, the only plowing that was done was by a Jeep Cherokee and nothing has happened since. She said that all Tuesday morning she had been calling the Town of Hempstead to complain about the snow and has repeatedly received a busy signal.
Ben Eilbott, a resident of Kew Avenue in Hewlett, said the town did an "abominable job" in clearing snow from his street, and reported that the nearby Harris Avenue "was a disaster." He said workers did not get to his street until Saturday afternoon, after the snow began to freeze.
The town said it held an emergency meeting before the storm to go over strategy to combat massive amounts of the white stuff. The town said it was ready with 300 people and 350 pieces of equipment.
"We had all the senior management here to make sure equipment and personnel were ready to go," said a town spokesperson. "We wanted to make sure the holiday weekend was safe."
Town officials asked residents to move vehicles off the road into a driveway. The town's emergency number is (516) 489-5000, ext. 1, which operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Complaints were also lodged that Bay Boulevard in Atlantic Beach was poorly plowed, officials said.
Officials said they received enough warning about the storm and were well-prepared.
Monty Seamen, deputy commissioner of roads for the Village of Cedarhurst, said the village put workers on standby and all the trucks were hooked up and ready to go.
"When the snow comes, we go to work. It's that simple," he said.
Peter Overs, administrator for the Village of Lawrence, said the village received plenty of warning on the storm's approach and the clean-up went well, as workers were armed with 40 tons of sand and salt to fight icy road conditions.
Nassau County Legislator Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside) said he has not received one complaint about snow on county roads in the Five Towns. He said he has received two complaints about Cedarhurst Village roads not being properly cleared-one on Cedarhurst Avenue and the other on Washington Avenue.
Hardware stores fared well before and during the storm, as customers purchased anything they could to fight the snow. Justin's Hardware and Department Store in Woodmere sold between 200 and 250 shovels, said owner Donald Pearlstein.
He eventually ran out of shovels but found a supplier and paid an extra couple of dollars to have the shovels delivered at night.
"If you get stuck in the car, a good steel shovel is the best thing to use," he said.
In addition, the store sold two tons of Ice Melt, and all sleds and toboggans are gone, he said.
While the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) had been prepping for a high number of outages, the storm left few residents without power. "It was nowhere near what we had feared," said Michael Lowndes, a LIPA spokesperson.
At the peak of the storm, there were only 900 outages Islandwide out of 1.4 million customers and by 5 p.m. there were only 50. "That is below what an average day would be," Lowndes said.
More snow is expected on Friday, Jan. 5, and officials say they are busy repairing plows in order to get them back on the streets.
