By JUDY RATTNER
What began as a snowstorm turned into a mix of sleet, freezing rain and rain later in the day, leaving an icy three-inch accumulation. Across Long Island, commuting by car, train or on foot became a difficult proposition - Nassau County reported 74 accidents and spinouts before noon.
"It was terrible," said Richie Catapano, a Rockville Centre letter carrier. "I'm on the job 29 years and it was one of the five worst days I can remember. It was doing everything - snowing, raining, sleeting, freezing rain. It soaked through all the layers of my rain gear within an hour, and then it started to ice. I felt like a little boy saying, 'I don't want to do this - I just want to go home.' Everything started to freeze - the screen doors on some of the homes, the locks on my jeep and some of the mailboxes, too."
Michael Benincasa, maintenance foreman for RVC schools, said, "It was all frozen. Snow blowers didn't work - we had to do everything by hand. There was a small window of opportunity, but once the temperature dropped and it got dark, we couldn't move anything. We had to clear all the schools a couple of times. Every time we cleared, it got covered again. It was difficult, a real mess. We did clear the entryways and steps on the day of the storm, but the late opening [of schools Feb. 15] helped us out quite a bit. We got in and salted and sanded the parking lots before the cars were there."
Larry Tetelman, an attorney who lives in Rockville Centre and takes the Long Island Rail Road to his law office in Manhattan, said he ran to catch the 5:01 p.m.train from Penn Station to Rockville Centre to get to an appointment. There was a long, slow-moving line at the 34th Street entrance to the station, Tetelman said, because LIRR officials were limiting access to the station due to crowding inside, with trains operating on a limited schedule as a result of the weather. He said he went to the Amtrak entrance to the LIRR, where there was no line, found a 4:57 that had been turned into a Babylon local for the day and made it home in about 45 minutes.
Tetelman said he knew of others who had much longer commutes. The LIRR Web site reported only limited service on the Babylon branch due to a downed power line in the Wantagh/Seaford area that was blocking a track. "I consider myself fortunate," he said. "I had a relatively smooth ride home considering what the conditions were. I was able to get on a train quickly and get home within an hour."
The storm was a bit of a windfall for some businesses in the village. Bartolomeo Agozzino, an owner of the newly opened Pizza Joint on Brower Avenue said, "We were busy during the storm. Not too many people came to the store to eat, but we had many calls for pizza deliveries despite the cold weather and the slippery conditions. Our delivery man was very busy."
John Calo, manager of the Associated supermarket on Long Beach Road, said the store stayed open until its regular closing time, 9 p.m., even though there weren't many shoppers. The day before the storm, however, "It was a madhouse," Calo said. "The biggest thing was rock salt. We can't keep enough. We had a trailer come from New Jersey, but it only had half of what we ordered. They're rationing it to all the stores because they don't have enough to supply everyone. We're expecting another delivery tomorrow, but it probably will only be half of what we ordered again. People have been calling, asking if we have salt, and they tell us ... none of the other stores around here has rock salt."
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