Riverhead Town highway supe: Snow turning to wet slush
“So far, so good,” Riverhead Town Highway Superintendent George Woodson said of the roads at about noon on Tuesday, although he said it had started snowing more about a half-hour earlier.
“Most of the snow has turned into a wet slush,” he said. “We expected six to 12 inches. We’ve been getting two or three inches, then it melts, and then another three inches and that melts. It’s a weird storm. I don’t know what’s going to happen with this last squall.”
The National Weather Service reported 5 inches had fallen so far at 12:45 p.m. in Calverton.
He said it started snowing at about 1:30 a.m.
There has not been much accumulation so far, and not many people getting stuck in the snow, he said.
“There wasn’t enough snow to do that,” he said.
Some of the problems of the prior storms, such as people driving around and snow blowing off the farms, haven’t as been big of a problem with the wet snow, Mr. Woodson said.
“Any time we don’t have many cars on the road makes our job easier,” he said.
People also need to be wary of heavy snow falling from wires or branches onto roofs or windshields, he said.
There are three outages in the Riverhead area, leaving 22 customers without power at about 12:45 p.m., according to PSEG-Long Island’s outage map. Power won’t be restored until between 1:45 and 4 a.m., however.
There was another outage in Jamesport, leaving less than 5 customers without electricity.
They are among 6,682 customers on Long Island are without power, mostly in Suffolk County. As of 11 a.m., PSEG-Long Island said it restored service to 5,118 of the more than 12,193 customers affected by the storm overnight.
PSEG deployed 125 linemen from Quebec to assist during this nor’easter, the third one to hit Long Island in 10 days.
A winter storm warning is in effect until 6 p.m. Schools on the North Fork were closed Tuesday.
