By John C. O'Connell
Several inches of fast-falling snow made driving hazardous and disrupted business, social and school activities.
The village attacked the storm early with 100 tons of salt and 100 tons of sand. "We started salting and sanding around 10 or 11 in the morning," said Village Clerk Vincent Ang. "Then we had the plows out at 11 a.m. and they worked all the way through until 11:30 at night. Then we started again [Friday] morning at 4:30 or 5."
Ang said the village had received "very, very few" complaints, generally a good gauge of how effective the snow-removal efforts were.
Approximately 50 village employees and 15 to 20 sanders, plows, payloaders and other pieces of equipment were deployed to battle the snow that fell at the rate of an inch an hour, according to some reports. Workers from the public works, highways, maintenance, garage and parks departments were utilized.
While schools didn't close early, all after-school activities and evening events were called off.
Tickets for Thursday night's cancelled performance of Memorial Junior High School's "All My Sons" were honored at Friday or Saturday night's performances. The snowy evening's production of South Junior High's "The Music Man" was rescheduled for 8:30 p.m. Saturday night. North's ninth-grade winter concert was rescheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 10.
The Town of Hempstead, which took harsh criticism two years ago for not responding appropriately to a winter storm, was well prepared this time. The town equipped its workers with 50,000 tons of salt and 250 pieces of snow-clearing equipment, said Susan Trinkle, a town spokesperson. Salt spreaders and plows were on the roads at 1 p.m., when there was enough snow to clear.
"I know from our end we were definitely prepared," Trinkle said. "The staff was all set and ready to go." And she said the communication among the departments -- sanitation, highway and conservation and waterways -- was all very good. About 17,000 tons of salt was needed to melt the ice from town roads.
Jeff Lipton contributed to this story.
