With snow making travel treacherous and resources strained to the limit, Southold Highway Superintendent Vincent Orlando said the town’s supply of salt remains “dangerously low”.
The town got one delivery last night of 40 tons of salt, Orlando said. With a delivery of 30 tons earlier in the week, Orlando said there were 80 to 100 tons in the town’s barn prior to last night’s delivery.
According to Orlando, 40 tons makes just one round of the entire town, so he has enough stocked up for just three rounds, this morning, tonight, and over the weekend.
“Absolutely, it’s low,” he said. “That’s living life on the edge, with two rounds left after this one. It’s like living paycheck to paycheck.”
With deliveries coming from a Staten Island supplier, Orlando said with the new snowfall, no shipments will come in today. “They’re not coming out today.” That means a big storm could leave the town’s barn empty, he said.
The town mixes the salt with sand, and Orlando said they could go to just sand in an emergency, but added that the salt is needed to melt the snow.
Town and county departments are critically low on road salt. Salt deliveries from the Staten Island supplier slowed down after the January 26 blizzard, according to highway superintendents for Southold, Riverhead and Brookhaven. All report having large road salt orders unfulfilled for weeks, receiving shipments “in dribs and drabs” throughout the month of February. See prior story.
“Hopefully the weather forecast will stay nice for the weekend so we can get caught up with deliveries,” Orlando said.
Meanwhile, Mother’s Nature’s blast of weather this morning has left area roads slick. “The roads right now are slippery,” Orlando said. Rain, followed by wet snow and then snow with ice below has made for a treacherous ride, he said.
Crews have been out plowing since 5 a.m., he said.
“People should use caution,” Orlando said, adding that snow is expected to continue throughout the day.
Due to the snow, all town offices are closing at 11:30 a.m. today and all school districts are closed.
Southold Town Supervisor Scott Russell, however, said he didn’t “anticipate the need for a state of emergency at this time. We are monitoring the conditions through the day.”
Of the new storm, Russell said, “This has been a brutal winter for us all. The bright spot is that we are down thestretch and hopefully won’t have to contend with it much longer.”
Orlando, the supervisor said, just ordered another 200 tons of salt yesterday and the vendor “assured him it’s on its way.”
The winter’s storms packed a punch to the town’s budget, Russell said. “We had many weather events during last year’s winter with considerable costs. We used those figures to develop this year’s budget and it’s clear we will exceed those costs.”
Check back to SoutholdLOCAL today for additional closings and cancellations.
