From the archives: Quick storm, slowed plows made for mess

This story was originally published in Newsday on March 10, 2005.

The day after a fast-moving Arctic blast caused more than 600 accidents across Long Island, those responsible for snow removal were calling it "a perfect storm" - as in perfectly miserable.

Officials said streets filled with panicky commuters meant plows couldn't do their job until it was too late - after roads were covered with "hard pack," a compacted layer of snow turned to ice that causes plows to skip over it. Things were so bad that more than twice the usual amount of road salt had little effect.

"It was absolutely, positively horrible," New York State Department of Transportation spokeswoman Eileen Peters said. "But, if the plows had been able to do their jobs during the storm, all this could have been avoided. The congestion meant they couldn't do that and once we started getting reports of hard-pack ice, we knew we were in for it."

The Department of Transportation, which is responsible for state roads on Long Island, had 200 plows on the roads, Peters said. Local and county agencies, like the departments of Public Works in both Nassau and Suffolk, also had maximum crews out - often to no avail.

"The time of day, the fact it came in extremely fast, that the temperatures dropped so rapidly and the snow fell so quickly. It made it impossible," Suffolk DPW Commissioner Charles Bartha said yesterday. He called the events "a perfect storm."

Roads were so jammed, a DOT plow crew required a police escort Tuesday in order to reach an area of Route 107 in Hicksville.

The agency reported that plow routes that usually take 1 1/2 to two hours to complete were taking more than five hours.

The dangerous conditions led to a record number of accidents, as Nassau and Suffolk police reported more than 300 in each county during a 24-hour period Tuesday and yesterday.

Tuesday night's difficulties created yesterday morning's headaches.

An overturned tractor-trailer spilled fuel and forced the Nassau County Highway Patrol to close the eastbound Long Island Expressway for almost seven hours between Exit 39 and Exit 40. A pileup on eastbound Sunrise Highway at the Oakdale merge stalled traffic there for hours.

Latrice Darrell left her North Bellport home at 6:50 a.m. yesterday, headed to her office in Melville. The commute usually takes about 40 minutes. Yesterday, it took her more than two hours.

And Bill Mazur, who owns a manufacturing business, said his commute from Northport to Lynbrook was "hairy." He drives a Dodge Ram 4x4. "But, people scare me," he said. "The weather was fine [yesterday morning], but the roads were still horrendous. There were a lot of dumb fender-benders."

Usually, NYSDOT officials said, a five-inch snowfall would require about 3,000 tons of salt to combat. State plow crews dropped more than twice that, Peters said. The effectiveness of salt is reduced at low temperatures, DOT officials said, and melting one inch of ice is equivalent to melting 12 inches of snow.

Drifts driven by high, gusting winds often covered roads as soon as they were plowed. "Drivers reported looking in their mirrors and seeing snow back on the roads they had just plowed," Peters said. "The roads were white again."

Beleaguered commuters will get another chance to test their nerves tomorrow, said Tim Morrin of the National Weather Service, with the possibility of more snow or a wet mix.

As Nassau DPW Commissioner Peter Gerbasi said of the week's earlier storm: "Sometimes Mother Nature is just tougher than we are."

Staff writer Christian Murray contributed to this story.

The formula for chaos

RAIN

Storm dumps up to half an inch of water on the ground beginning at dawn Tuesday. Temperature: mid-40s.

+COLD AIR

Arctic winds bring a sudden burst of cold from Canada just before noon. Water on ground begins to freeze. Temperature: 30s, and dropping fast.

+SNOW

Storm to the west gets pulled into the mix by 1 p.m., dumping up to 4 inches of slush on top of the now-frozen roads.

+ EARLY RUSH

Cars clog the roads beginning around 2 p.m. and weigh the snow down, preventing plows from cleaning effectively.

Temperature: mid-20s.

=CHAOS

By night, the mercury is in the teens. Ice hardens overnight, rendering plows all but useless yesterday morning. Motorists suffer.

+MORE PUNISHMENT

Tomorrow is likely to see light snow, or a mix of rain and snow. At night, that disturbance might try to spin up a storm near the coast.

SOURCE: NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE

IN 24 HOURS

600 accidents

200 plows

6,000 tons of salt