By John C. O'Connell and Robert Remler
Saturday's near-blizzard brought 10 to 14 inches of white wonder to Valley Stream, causing danger and inconvenience to many all around the village.
"We had our full fleet of snow vehicles out for this one," said Nick Camerano, general supervisor of the public works department. "We had 10 plows, seven sanders and four payloaders. We started our operations at 5:30 Saturday morning when the snow first started and we are still at the finishing phase of the cleanup this morning," he said Tuesday. "We had 30 people on each of four shifts working full time at this."
Camerano said some of the village work was hampered - adding to the cost of cleanup - because of residents leaving their cars parked in the streets and also due to people shoveling and snow-blowing the snow back into the streets, which then had to be replowed.
"We stayed constantly on top of this, and I think Valley Stream did the best of all the surrounding areas," Camerano said. "We did receive complaints from people about county and town streets within the village which are not our jurisdiction, but we did the Valley Stream streets. In fact, we did not see a county or Town of Hempstead snow vehicle after Saturday afternoon, and we stayed on the job all weekend We didn't stop."
This was confirmed by area residents. Anthony Iadevaio said that snow removal in southwest Valley Stream was good. Iadevaio said that Merrick Road, a county road, was not done as well as village streets. He said that during the storm trucks came down his block two or three times. "I think they did a very good job." He also reported that school custodians in District 24 also did a good job clearing away snow.
Gibson resident Jack Mahoney said that snow cleanup takes time. "With the snowfall that we had, you can't expect miracles overnight." While some of the streets near Mahoney's home were "a little late" in getting cleared, he understood the delay was caused by the village's need to clear priority areas first. "You think Valley Stream is bad, go into St. Albans and see what the city does for those poor people."
