DOT manages monster storm
By DEBORAH A. MILES
Residents of Oswego County called it the “monster storm that made national news.”

That’s when Mother Nature crippled the roadways in northwestern New York by dumping more than 10 feet of snow within a couple of days in early February.

The Town of Orwell measured the highest — 12 feet of the heavy lake-effect white stuff, that caused roofs to collapse, communities to close, and people to remain trapped inside their homes.

The governor declared a state of emergency and the National Guard was sent in to help clear the snow.

But it was the organizational skills of PEF members at the state Department of Transportation (DOT) who made certain the clean up was swift and efficient.

“We can throw a bunch of snow blowers out there, but the work isn’t going to get done if it’s not organized and managed properly,” said PEF Division 256 member David Isbell, DOT emergency management coordinator and civil engineer 1 from the Syracuse region.

About 50 to 60 PEF members in DOT managed an Incident Command System (ICS), a national standard used to control incidents from hurricanes to traffic accidents. They worked 24/7, on two or three different shifts to support the snow removal operation in the field.

Sky high with snow
One PEF member in the field was Justin Przepasniak, a geographic information system coordinator, who used a laptop to assess the roads and coordinate the plows.

“There was zero visibility and the snow was coming down in your face,” he said. “When we were in Mexico, NY, it was really bad. It was like driving through a canyon, because the shoulders of the road were sky high with snow. We saw people travel by snowmobile. They were on their roofs pushing down the snow. Dogs were even on the roofs, because they had no place else to go.”

Przepasniak and others spent up to two weeks in Oswego, left their families, and worked nights and sometimes 12-hour shifts.
“They kept the operation going. That’s the key to it being a success,” Isbell said.

A crucial command center
The ICS crew coordinated all the additional people who came from other regions.

“We set them up with hotel rooms, meals and serviced their equipment. We gave out work assignments, reviewed damage assessments, mapping — all the work that goes along with actual snow removal,” Isbell said.

The ICS crew is trained to handle major incidents. But about half the staff in this particular operation were new.

“The people who stepped-in and volunteered did a remarkable job. They were put in a job they had not done before, and in a very dynamic situation changing, literally, by the hour.

“The National Guard operations were also managed by DOT staff,” Isbell said. “They came with loaders and dump trucks to remove snow in areas where the blowers were not practical.”

And where did they put all the snow?

Isbell said the snow was blown off the road into fields or wooded areas. In the more populated cities and villages, a lot of the snow was loaded into dump trucks and hauled away.

“We received compliments from the municipalities, county and National Guard,” Isbell said. “They were happy with our level of organization and expertise, and we were glad to be of help.”

The Communicator April 2007

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