By Sarah Moskowitz
Although the opportunity to frolic in the snow may have been appealing to children, village students had to wait until normal dismissal time, as only after school and extracurricular activities were cancelled in the East Rockaway, Lynbrook and Malverne school districts.
Lynbrook schools follow a district-wide policy that requires school to remain in session once the day has begun.
"We don't know if anyone's home to receive [students]," said Superintendent William Metkiff. "Once [parents] bring them to school, we know they're somewhere safe."
East Rockaway Superintendent Arnie Dodge said he did not end the day early in his district either, because school was already in session and conditions were not blizzard-like, in which case a different decision may have been made. Malverne elementary schools, however, had five school buses travelling to both schools to transport children home.
"We felt confident that we could get our children home safely," said Assistant Superintendent for Facilities and Support Services Jim O'Beirne.
By the time children left school, dozens of plows had long been hard at work in an effort to make roadways safe for travel.
In Lynbrook, salting and sanding the streets started at about 8 a.m., when the snow began to fall. Department of Public Works plows took to the streets around 2 p.m. and set out to clear each and every street in the village. Nine trucks plowed nine different zones, each covering about five miles of roadway. Trucks rolled through the streets throughout Thursday night and into Friday morning, until the last shifts took to the streets at 3 p.m. on Friday.
Roads continued to be checked and were sanded and salted on an as-need basis, according to DPW Superintendent Philip Healey. He said all roads were plowed more than once.
"Snow plowing is a very repetitive action," said Healey. "You have to go a number of times because you can only push the snow a few feet at a time. Our goal is to plow streets curb to curb."
Healey added that if a bad enough storm were to hit Lynbrook, plows would be out on weekends too. He said that he did not receive complaints from residents about plowing in the area.
"I think the village residents trust us and we do our work," he said.
Malverne's Department of Public Works also aims to plow curb to curb, but Superintendent Paul Jessup said that plowing is interfered with when residents park in the street to avoid being plowed in.
"Parking further away from the curb narrows it even more and sometimes it makes it impossible to get a plow down the road because cars are parked so close together," said Jessup.
Jessup asks that Malvernites not park in the road while plows are driving through. He also requests that residents wait for plows to finish their rounds before shoveling driveways, or shoveled snow will be plowed back into the driveway. Jessup said he normally gets calls from residents about this. Jessup added that residents had a positive reaction to the cleanup on Thursday and the department was complimented on their job.
East Rockaway had all of their 10 plows out on the streets at about 12 p.m. on Thursday, prior to which, other trucks had been sanding and salting all areas and intersections. On Friday the areas were rechecked and parking lots were resanded.
One East Rockaway plow hit the streets on Sunday to see if there were any icy patches left over. Even as late as Monday, areas were checked again by the East Rockaway Department of Public Works, said Superintendent Nicholas Collins. Any spots that were not melted were salted and sanded again.
