Battling snow drifts in Southold

After more than 30 hours battling whiteout conditions, stuck equipment and 10 foot snow drifts, Southold Highway Superintendent Dan Goodwin said he sent his crew home late Monday night.

“We made one last run on all the really bad spots and pushed them back as far as we could,” he said in an interview Tuesday. “And the wind was kind of letting up at the same time. It was nice to wake up and see the trees not moving this morning. That gave us a little bit of a reprieve.”

On Tuesday, Goodwin said the department is focusing on cleaning up drifting snow from farm roads, cleaning intersections and making additional passes down residential streets where snow may have piled up after homeowners cleaned up their driveways.

Some farm roads could be briefly shut down while crews break out heavy machinery to push snowdrifts back and widen the lanes.

“You need those taller plows that have that funneling action to get the snow up and over the bank,” Goodwin said. “These trucks are even having a hard time doing that because the banks are so high.”

The highway superintendent said it could take days to fully recover. Later in the week, the department may bring in dump trucks to remove large piles of snow from downtown areas, including Love Lane in Mattituck.

“That’s usually two to three days after the storm after everybody gets a little bit of rest,” he said. “Today is like triage. The bleeding stopped yesterday ... through the rest of the week, we can start talking about the cosmetic surgery.”