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Towns deal with the snow after trying to finish up windstorm cleanup

Traffic slows down on Lake Avenue at Kodak Park in Wednesday's snow.
WXXI Photo
Traffic slows down on Lake Avenue at Kodak Park in Wednesday's snow.

Local town highway crews who may be  a bit weary from all of the cleanup after last week’s windstorm, had to get back in gear on Tuesday getting ready for a major snow storm.

The Town of Greece is one of the towns that was hit hardest by having to deal with falling trees, power poles and utility lines during last week’s windstorm. And now, like all of the other area towns, they have to shift gears and deal with the heavy snow.

Town Supervisor Bill Reilich says they are prepared in terms of salt and equipment.

“We’re well stocked on salt we have around 3,000 tons of salt;  to put that in perspective that’s more salt than we’ve used all year so far, so we’re in good shape and we’re going to stay on top of this and we won’t stop plowing until the snow stops falling.”

Reilich cautions that if you see plows operating with their lights on, they have the right of way at intersections and major roads.

“They are not stopping at those lights, they have to keep that momentum to keep moving that tremendous amount of snow they’re pushing; so be aware of that as a driver, these snow plows have the right of way just like an emergency vehicle, if they’ve got their lights on and their plowing.”

Reilich says even though the town had to temporarily stop the pickup of debris from last week's windstorm, they expect to continue that after the snow storm is over.

In Irondequoit, Town Supervisor Dave Seeley says the town will keep its ‘warming station’ open at the Irondequoit Library in the community rooms for residents to pick up snacks and water.

Seeley asks that if homeowners placed storm debris in front of their house they make sure it is not blocking the road or sidewalk.

Seeley says that there are still many trees and limbs either learning on utility wires or near collapse, and with the winter storm, he is letting RG&E know about his concerns about the possibility of additional outages in the next few days 

Randy Gorbman is WXXI's director of news and public affairs. Randy manages the day-to-day operations of WXXI News on radio, television, and online.