Intense snow shuts down area for one day.
By: Lea Kahn
A 24-hour snowstorm dumped 20 inches of the white stuff on the township Sunday and Monday the most snow since about 30 inches fell on Lawrence during the Blizzard of 1996.
The Presidents Day snowstorm, which began around 3 p.m. Sunday and pulled out of Lawrence around dinnertime Monday kept Department of Public Works road crews busy as they plowed 100 miles of township-owned streets.
Township officials had not finished calculating the cost of the storm for overtime and materials Wednesday morning. But the handful of smaller snowstorms that have occurred since New Year’s Day has cost the township about $5,000 in overtime for the workmen, plus $23,000 for materials such as salt and calcium chloride.
The proposed 2003 municipal budget, which has been introduced but not adopted, allocated $55,000 in the snow removal budget, Municipal Manager William Guhl said. If the township exhausts the 2003 snow removal budget, it can tap the snow removal trust fund, he said. Money that is left over from previous snow removal budgets is moved over to that fund, which has about $20,000 in it.
"The good news is that the snowstorm occurred on a weekend and a holiday, which meant there was less traffic," Mr. Guhl said. "It made for a cleanup that was easier. But the work required premium pay (for overtime for the workmen)."
Although the Presidents Day snowstorm forced the closing of the Quaker Bridge Mall on Monday for the first time since the January 1996 snowstorm it had little impact on the Educational Testing Service, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and the township public schools, all of which were closed for the Presidents Day holiday.
The Quaker Bridge Mall closed an hour early Sunday at 5 p.m., not the scheduled 6 p.m., said John Ferreira, general manager of the mall. The mall was closed all day Monday because of the snowstorm, and reopened at noon Tuesday.
Mr. Ferreira said he remembers the 1996 snowstorm, because it closed the mall for two days. He said he spent part of that time helping to plow the mall’s parking lots.
ETS and the public schools remained closed Tuesday, but Bristol-Myers Squibb opened two hours later than scheduled Tuesday. ETS and the schools were back in session Wednesday.
The Police Department, meanwhile, reported only a handful of car accidents attributable to the snowstorm. There were two reports of accidents Sunday afternoon just as the snow began to fall and three on Monday.
During the height of the storm, police officers traded their rear-wheel drive patrol cars for the four-wheel drive sport utility vehicles that belong to the township’s Construction Department and Health Department, Mr. Guhl said.
Mr. Guhl said the decision was made to call in some Public Works Department employees to man a couple of snowplows Sunday evening. A snowplow kept the main streets clear overnight, so that fire engines and ambulances could respond to emergencies, he said.
"We started fighting the storm Monday morning," Mr. Guhl said. "We called in one crew at 5 a.m., and another crew at 7 a.m. We knew the storm would last all day, and we didn’t want to work the men for more than 16 hours (at a time). The work is exhausting."
Although the storm began to peter out Monday afternoon, it was decided to keep the snowplows on the road until 11 p.m., Mr. Guhl said. By the time the crews went home Monday night, all of the streets in Lawrence were passable, he said. A snowplow was kept on duty overnight Monday and into Tuesday morning, in case of a problem, he said.
While most of the streets are maintained by Lawrence Township, there are some roads that are maintained by Mercer County or the state Department of Transportation, he said. Sometimes, the county or state snowplows would plow snow across the intersection of a township street and it was necessary for the township snowplow to clear it, he said.
Tuesday, the Public Works Department crews were kept busy knocking down the 4- and 5-foot-tall snowbanks that were created by snowplows at street intersections, he said. Township police officers were on patrol, reminding property owners to clear the snow from the sidewalks in front of their properties, he added.
Mr. Guhl said the Public Works Department crews expect to spend the next few days clearing the snow from streets in the southern end of the township. Some of those streets such as Lanning and Myrtle avenues and Pine and Vermont streets have a small amount of off-street parking, so it is important to remove the snow that has been pushed against the curb, he said.
The Public Works Department crews will load up the snow from the streets in that section of the township and transport it to some township-owned land on the east side of Ohio Avenue, opposite the former Public Works Department garage, he said.

