Plowing Oyster Bay takes planning, preparation

Through months of planning and years of practice, Oyster Bay's highway department has gotten clearing snow down to a science. Wednesday, that was put to a brutal test.

Swirling winds and gales of snow created "whiteouts" that made it nearly impossible to see down the block in some areas. Trucks would plow streets, only to have to return within the hour to plow again.

Some of the hundreds of town workers began on the job at 1 a.m. Wednesday.

"Once the wind kicks in, I have some concern that there are going to be trees down," said Richard T. Betz, Oyster Bay's highway commissioner and an Oyster Bay employee for 37 years. "We're going to plow the town two, three times."

The town starts getting ready at the beginning of winter, preparing trucks and ordering supplies from a $1.5 million annual snow budget. Hospitals supply addresses of patients on dialysis or with other serious conditions, who will need to have their streets plowed first.

Officials track oncoming storms a week or more in advance, town supervisor John Venditto said. At the first sign of snow, trucks are on the streets spreading a mixture of sand and salt to add traction. After 2 inches of snow or more falls, the plows go out. The town's 800 miles of streets are divided into numbered clusters and cleared repeatedly until the snow ends.

One plow driver, Frank Klarmann, took a Newsday reporter and photographer into Plainview Wednesday afternoon. Klarmann started the route during a lull in the storm around midday, clearing the few inches of snow that had fallen. Residents looked up from shoveling their driveways to watch the large, bright orange truck rumble by.

Klarmann pulled a long, black lever to move the plow's front blades and sprayed sparing amounts of salt and sand onto icier spots by pushing a button under the lever. That helped clear a one-lane path through most side streets for any emergency vehicles or the occasional car.

Klarmann got to work at 3 a.m. Drivers get short breaks every four hours and a longer break after eight. But Klarmann said he expected to keep going - with naps and meals in the highway department's building in Syosset - until the storm breaks. In past years, he's been gone from home for as long as three days.

"I have a very understanding wife," he said, laughing.

Betz, a veteran of almost four decades of snowstorms, said he might have to pull his drivers off the roads if the winds and snow make it too hard to see. But in time, the plows will have the streets cleared "curb to curb.

"We always deliver a good product," he said. "You have to pace yourself. You know what your operation's going to be."