At 9 a.m. on most Saturdays, the Plaza Diner on Paterson Plank Road in Secaucus is a hopping place as people come out for breakfast before taking on their daily chores. But on Saturday, Dec. 30, most of the tables and booths were vacant and the staff stood near the glass front doors watching snow pile up on the sidewalks and streets.
The diner was not alone. Local banks, drug stores and supermarkets saw the same slackening off in shopping as the worst storm since 1996 blanketed the town with 18 inches of snow.
People called it the New Year’s Nor’Easter, and those who had to make their way around town will remember how much more easily they could travel inside the boundaries of Secaucus than the local highways, as the Department of Public Works moved quickly to clear streets.
The storm painted Secaucus white starting around 5 a.m. Saturday morning and continued to pound the town and the region for more than 11 hours. Town workers spent most of the day and evening struggling to free critical streets of snow. Cleanup efforts continued until after dark.
“This was the first major snowstorm we had since 1996,” Mayor Dennis Elwell said last week. “Some of the workers who helped clear the streets had never faced this situation before, since they’d been hired since then. They did an amazing job.”
While the plows issued by Hudson County cleared some of the county roads early in the day, many of these were covered again within an hour as snow fell as a furious rate. Gonnelli said estimates showed one or two inches falling per hour at some points.
“We never lost control of the situation,” said Town Administrator Anthony Iacono, praising the efforts of the road department as well as several public officials, all of whom put in long hours on Saturday to help keep the situation from becoming a disaster.
Gonnelli said the department has a plan of action that is put into place whenever it snows, particularly when the snow can impose a threat to life or safety.
Teams of workers go out and clear firehouses, the police station and the ambulance station to make certain these vehicles can get out quickly. DPW workers then clear what are called “Emergency Streets,” important main arteries through the town that must be clear. In order to provide parking for cars on these streets, the town also cleared municipal parking lots. Once critical streets were cleared, the town moved to plow narrower streets such as Huber Street as well as areas around the churches. The DPW also cleared areas around the schools so that they could open on Tuesday morning, Elwell said.
The second phase of the street clearing effort, Gonnelli said, involved removing excess snow from various streets – particularly the narrower streets where parking is limited. Gonnelli said snow was brought up to the swimming pool parking lot on Koelle Boulevard.
During the peak of the storm on Saturday, Gonnelli had full staff on duty. On Sunday, he had a reduced staff, taking care of specific problems, while on Monday, New Year’s Day, he had only a skeleton crew deployed. As of Tuesday, his department was back up to full staff clearing streets.
Gonnelli, however, said some residents got confused over which streets were considered snow emergency routes and which were slated for snow removal. People who were parked on streets considered emergency routes were required to move their cars so that emergency vehicles such as fire engines, ambulance or police cars could get through. Cars parked in areas were snow is slated for removal needed only to move the cars long enough for the town to clear the snow out – this generally happens a day or two after the storm. The town notifies the pubic by having police announce the snow removal from their cars. It is also announced via the local media. People can call 330-2080 for more information.
Snow dumped back into street poses problem
A more serious concern, said Gonnelli, was the dumping of snow out onto the streets after the plows had cleared the roadways – particularly by contractors hired by private property owners. Elwell said town workers were confronted by wind blowing snow back onto the streets as well as people throwing snow into previously plowed areas.
“People and snow removal companies have made it hard for us by putting the snow back onto the street,” Gonnelli said. “We did fine in cleaning the streets, but people kept putting the snow back onto the streets after we were done.”
Gonnelli said residents need to put the snow onto front lawns and other open areas, not onto the street. Elwell said that DPW crews were often frustrated by the fact that streets they thought they cleared were clogged again later as people dug their cars out.
Elwell said he understood why people in the some of the narrow streets dumped snow, noting that communities in some sections of town were designed so poorly when constructed that streets had little room to put the snow. Many of the complexes and other housing constructed under the auspices of the Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission created narrow corridors with little room to put the snow. Building densities differ between the town and the Hackensack Meadowlands Development Commission.
Although the town could impose fines on residents for throwing snow onto the street, Elwell said that with people struggling to rid themselves of 18 inches of snow from narrow streets, he would be reluctant to do so. “I’m not afraid to have people ticketed,” he said. “When we had to deal with speeding cars, our police department gave out tickets. But when a storm like this hits and people are struggling to find a place to put the snow, I feel reluctant. I have no reluctance, however, to have tickets issued to private contractors.”
What made this storm different from similar-sized storms in the past was the fact that the town had 11 more streets in the warehouse district to plow, streets including Meadowlands Parkway where private contractors were a particular problem. Gonnelli said private companies along Seaview Drive, American Way and even sections of Meadowlands Parkway plowed their snow out into the street after the town had plowed, forcing the town to go back later and plow again.