After digging out all weekend, residents head back to work and school.
By: Josh Appelbaum
Emerging from the blizzard of 2005 mostly unscathed, snow-boot clad, well-seasoned Cranburians took out to Main Street after digging out Sunday.
While most of the region took a snow day Monday, it was back to business in Cranbury as township offices, Cranbury School, restaurants and retailers were open, attracting cabin-fever afflicted residents.
Students were able to sleep in Monday and Tuesday thanks to Cranbury School’s two-hour delayed openings, but they didn’t have an opportunity to sled in Village Park until late afternoon. Surrounding districts South Brunswick, Jamesburg and Monroe closed schools Monday and had two-hour delayed openings Tuesday.
Cranbury’s Chief School Administrator Carol Malouf said she considered several factors before making the decision to delay school’s opening. She consulted police about the condition of outlying roads, communicated with the head janitor to determine whether the building was equipped with adequate heat and electricity and that school grounds were safe for students and staff.
Cranbury Public Works Director Tom Witt said delayed openings allowed commuters traveling to work to pass through the historic village without putting children walking to school at risk of injury or putting extra bus traffic on roads during rush hour.
But many adult Cranbury residents were out and about, running errands and taking advantage of a day off.
Cindy Sorensen of Madison Way in Shadow Oaks, a special services instructor at Mercer County College took advantage of her snow day Monday to mail some packages and cooked soup over the weekend.
"I was able to clean the house and mailed some packages (Monday)," Ms. Sorensen said. "My husband used the snowblower on the driveway, so I made three different kinds of soups (on the weekend)."
Ms. Sorensen said she made butternut squash, chicken and wild rice and Weight Watchers’ vegetable-based "zero-point" soup.
Peggy Brennan of Main Street, who made "hamburger soup," and also took part in a more traditional snow-related pastime Sunday.
She and her two sons and grandchildren sledded at Village Park and awaited the possibility of doing the same on Monday.
"But Cranbury was the one school in the whole area to go ahead and open today," Ms. Brennan said.
Victoria Arcella, an East Windsor business owner who stopped at the Cranbury Post Office on Monday, said traversing roads was mostly easy, although some back roads were treacherous.
"We had a lot of instances of employees running late to work, but we’d rather them be a little late and safe," Ms. Arcella said.
Joe Russo, manager of Cranbury Paint and Hardware, one of the businesses that dug out Monday morning, said Cranbury residents flocked to the Main Street store in the lead-up to the storm, relieving them of about 1,400 pounds of ice-melting materials, about 35 shovels and about 15 circular sleighs, toboggans and track-sleds.
The store also had a run on batteries, flashlights and heavy duty gloves before it closed its doors at 2 p.m. Saturday.
Mr. Russo said it surprised him how many cans of paint he and other workers mixed for customers Friday and Saturday.
"Everyone wanted to paint while they were at home in the storm," Mr. Russo said.
Snow removal did claim some victims over the weekend, with residents sustaining minor injuries.
Kim Irving, a Cranbury First Aid Squad volunteer, said the squad received several calls over the weekend for people injured in slip-and-fall accidents on ice and snow.

