For the most part, area municipalities came through the weekend snowstorm in pretty good shape, according to local officials.
Brian Valentino, borough business manager of Shrewsbury, said there were very few complaints from residents as members of the borough’s Public Works Department were out in force early on Saturday.
According to Valentino, the workers were called in at 6 a.m. and were on the road with plows shortly after.
He noted there were a few first aid calls on Saturday morning, and when those calls came in, a borough plow met the squad’s ambulance in front of its facility and made sure it had a clear path to its destination as well as to the hospital.
"I’m very proud of the staff," Valentino said. "They did a good job on little sleep."
In Little Silver, things went well on borough roads, but the county was not as fast as it has been previously in getting the roads it is responsible for in the town cleared.
"Usually they do a very good job, but this time it wasn’t up to their usual standards," according to Borough Administrator and Clerk Michael D. Biehl.
The county roads in the borough are Rumson Road, Willow Drive, Prospect Avenue south of Rumson Road, and Seven Bridges Road.
According to Biehl, those roads were not cleared until Sunday night.
Biehl noted that Little Silver received a 50-ton delivery of salt and sand just before the storm hit. "Now we need to replenish it," he said.
In Sea Bright, Borough Clerk Mary Ann Smeltzer said things went very well. On Tuesday, the borough’s three-man public works crew continued snow-clearing operations, and there was a six-member crew sent over by the Monmouth County Sheriff’s Department to help with the snow removal effort.
The crew sent by the county came through a program run by the sheriff’s department for individuals needing to fulfill community service requirements of their sentences.
"Guys who are short term or are going to be leaving (the Monmouth County jail in Freehold Township) do some community service work to take time off their sentence," according to Gary McTigh, who runs the program for the sheriff’s department. He noted that everyone sent out under the program has met criteria established by the county and state for participation in the work, and there are no felons in the groups.
With the snowstorm, the borough can put the men wherever they are needed, such as shoveling or spreading salt in front of the firehouse, police station or senior center.
McTigh said it was likely the crew would remain in Sea Bright throughout the week.
Smeltzer noted that the borough has taken advantage of the program before, having crews plant dune grass along the beach and other such work.
McTigh said crews have worked in 37 different municipalities in the county, and another group was helping with snow removal in Allentown this week.
Last year, McTigh estimated, crews working under programs conducted by the sheriff’s department worked roughly 30,000 man hours for municipalities and nonprofit organizations such as the Red Cross.