Community Corner

A Post-Storm Letter From the Tolland Town Manager's Office

Residents and workers are being thanked.

Town Manager Steven Werbner issued the following letter to Tolland residents on Tuesday:

I want to thank all residents for your patience during this most recent historic storm.

Many people have expressed their thanks to the town for the efforts in opening roads and ensuring public safety as the main priority. Some are concerned with the fact that school has been postponed for two days post-storm and are questioning why school parking lots could not have been cleared in the same time frame as public roads.

No town in the state is equipped either person power-wise or equipment-wise to handle a storm with the amount of snow that fell during the 24 hour period starting last Friday. In a normal snow event we have personnel assigned to roads and personnel assigned to parking lots and sidewalks. They can work on a
parallel path. Due to the severity of this storm we had to utilize all personnel to try and keep up with the roads. Our equipment is not sized to push the weight of this accumulation and in many cases we had to work trucks in tandem to handle the snow or make multiple passes.

We had trucks that were sliding off the road and due to the strain on the equipment several trucks broke down. We are not like some communities where we have spare equipment, our front line equipment is all we have to use and again no one can make equipment handle more than it is sized to handle without possible malfunction. It is a tribute to our mechanics that we are able to keep our equipment running to the extent that it did. Making matters worse, for a period of time the snow was so blinding that we had to take all personnel off the roads. This while necessary for safety reasons, allows the snow to accumulate and makes it all the more difficult to remove when the operation can continue. Once our crews could resume plowing they remained on the roads for extended periods of time opening all roads by Sunday evening.

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If you are watching the news a number of towns today still have a significant number of roads that have not been opened and others that are openhave one lane. Once we opened all roads we had to and continue to today go back and push back snow as much as possible so that roads can be wide enough to accommodate school busses and to make it safe for children walking to bus stops. We also need to make room for possible storms mid-week and over the weekend.

Finally, we need to address accumulations at intersections to make it safe for people when turning. While public safety is our main priority in these events we also recognize the need to open school parking lots as soon as possible after an event so that school can resume. In this case since the lots had not been addressed during the storm, snow removal after the fact requires that pay loaders be used for which we only have two. As you can imagine contractors are hard to come by during an event of this nature, but today we have been able to get some assistance as they are freeing up from their normal customers. By the end of today all parking lots should be open.

You should also be aware there is now an issue with snow loads on certain school roofs, but this issue is being addressed by the Board of Education. As you can imagine working in a blinding snow storm, removing snow for 24, 36, 40 hour-plus periods of time with minimal rest and being away from your own household responsibilities during storm conditions is not an easy task. I say this with many years of experience in this business and with all honesty that our town crews, our directors of department operations do their job with more dedication and skill than found in the vast majority of the communities in the state. Our record over the past four major storms that have occurred in this state demonstrates an ability to manage the work so that it is done timely and in a cost efficient manner.

Do I wish that after all that we encountered over the weekend our world could be back to normal by today? Sure, but knowing that our community can travel safely, that there were no major injuries or loss of life, that property damage was minimal other than the problems at Star Hill makes me confident that the efforts and direction that we took during and after the storm were appropriate and I thank you for your continued support and patience.

Town of Tolland
21 Tolland Green
Tolland Connecticut 06084
United States


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